Early breast cancer detection has a significant impact on extending survival and improving quality of life. Young women with breast cancer account for 7% of all breast cancers. Diagnostic delays are common and they present often at an advanced stage, with the more aggressive and less responsive disease to hormonal therapy. Efforts to make non-subjective palpation data collection results in a near commercial solution (See Sure Touch product below)

However, running the sensor by an expert may not be as efficient as a robotic system that can capture the exact location of a lesion/lump.
The Advanced Robotic breasT ExaMination Intelligen System (ARTEMIS) project aims at developing an intelligent robotic system that will help early breast cancer detection. We developed intelligent algorithms and soft robotic system for this project. ARTEMIS was a collaborative 1-year project, which is funded by Cancer Research UK. Partners in this project include the University of Lincoln, University of Bristol and Imperial College London. At the University of Lincoln, we developed an intelligent algorithm that allows a robot to learn from expert demonstrations how to perform palpation.

Cancer Research UK, 2020-2021.

Contact: Dr Amir Ghalamzan

External references:

• L-CAS
• Imperial College London