Date: October 2017.
Source: Proceedings of 3DBODY.TECH 2017. 8th International Conference and Exhibition on 3D Body Scanning and Processing Technologies, Montreal, Canada.
Abstract: Bra fit is a common quality of life problem for women with breast reconstruction. However, there is a lack of knowledge of how the changes in breast size and shape due to breast reconstruction surgery affect a woman’s bra comfortability. There exists a unique opportunity to capture surgeons’ knowledge of how breasts change after reconstruction and relay that information to clothing designers to aid designing bras for this patient population. Our goal is to investigate how to translate surgical knowledge about breast size, shape, and symmetry changes to quantitative data usable for bra design. We compared common measurements of the breast used by clothing designers to determine bra fit to standard clinical measurements used by surgeons for reconstruction planning. In consultation with a clothing designer and reconstructive surgeon, we determined 7 bra measurements and 8 associated fiducial points that can be localized on the type of clinical images that is widely used for documenting surgical outcomes. The measurements summarize the width, height, and projection of the breasts, as well as, the location of the breasts in reference to each other and to the torso. From our previously gathered database of 3D  surface images of the torsos of 505 women who underwent breast reconstruction at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, we selected a sample of 32 women who had implant-based reconstruction and had 3D images before breast surgery and images from at least three months after final implant placement. Using software developed by our team members at the University of Houston, a team member marked fiducial points, which were reviewed by an expert, on the pre-operative and post-operative images to calculate the bra measurements. Using these fiducial points, we measure the size, shape, and symmetry changes in a manner that is directly translatable to clothing design from the pre-operative image to the post-operative image for each patient to identify common changes for implant-based reconstruction. Future work will lend insight into how different types of reconstruction affect bra fit and how bra design can be adapted to improve quality of life after breast reconstruction.
Article: Correspondence of Breast Measurements for Bra Design After Reconstruction Surgery.
Authors: Krista M NICKLAUS, Jevon CHU, Chi LIU, Greg P REECE, Fatima A MERCHANT, Michelle C FINGERET, Mia K MARKEY. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin; Department of Plastic Surgery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston TX; Apparel and Art Design College, Xi’an Polytechnic University, Xi’an (Shaanxi), P.R. China; Department of Engineering Technology, University of Houston; Department of Behavioral Science, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston TX; Department of Imaging Physics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston TX, USA.