IPhone TrueDepth® cameras performance compared to optical 3D scanner for imaging the compressed breast shape

Modelling of the breast surface shape under compression in the cranio-caudal and medio-lateral oblique views could advance the development of image processing techniques and of dosimetric estimates in digital mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis. Our goal is to compare the performance of a previously tested and used optical structured light scanning system (SLSS) capable of capturing the breast shape under compression to that of an infrared smartphone-based SLSS. Their performance was compared by scanning a cuboid phantom and two breast shaped phantoms (30 mm and 74 mm thick). Ten scans of the cuboid phantom were acquired with each scanner, and the measured length and thickness of the scanned shape were compared against the ground truth and between the two scanners. The performance of the scanners regarding breast-like phantoms was evaluated by calculating the maximum and mean distance, along with the root mean square difference, between each scanners result and against the matching ground truth. The cuboid phantom analysis showed a statistical difference for the thickness measurement in both scanners and in the length measurement for the optical scanner (p<0.05). However, no statistical difference was found between the scanner measurements. For the breast-like phantoms, the higher maximum distances were found in the infrared scans, but the mean distance between ground truth surface and the scans showed equivalent performance for both scanners. Our results suggest that the smartphone-based SLSS performance is sufficient to be used to create a complete three-dimensional model of the breast shape.