Breast cancer · Guide
Breast cancer explorer: guide
Show the breast within the body, enter the tumour’s clock position, distance and size from the report, explain the operation and share a matching picture sheet.
For patients and families
Look at the picture together
The picture opens with the whole body. Choose Chest to see both breasts on the chest muscle and ribs, then Breast to move close. Drag to turn it and scroll or pinch to zoom.
Show what your team has found
Your clinician can enter which breast, the clock position, the distance from the nipple, the size and the depth from your report. Breast reports describe a position as a clock face seen by someone facing you: 12 o’clock is at the top. The purple tumour moves with those settings, and the breast map in the corner shows the same clock face. The shape is schematic, not a copy of your scan.
Things you could ask
“Can you show me where it is, using my report?”
“Have the lymph nodes in my armpit been checked?”
“What would each operation remove, and what would my breast look like afterwards?”
“Is reconstruction possible?”
Take it home
Ask for a picture sheet with the views you discussed, your team’s explanation, questions to ask and where to find help. A QR code reopens the same model settings on your phone. Names, notes and contact details are never included in that code or saved online.
For clinicians
Start with orientation
The explorer adds breasts, the pectoralis major, ribs and axillary lymph nodes to the shared body, renderer and labels from the rectal explorer. It opens at normal anatomy with no tumour or operation. Whole body, Chest and Breast change the camera in one continuous scene.
Set up from the report
| Control | What to set |
|---|---|
| Tumour on the model | Add one tumour. Changing a tumour setting also adds it. |
| Breast | Right or left. |
| Clock position | 1–12 o’clock, as the radiologist faces the patient: 3 o’clock is lateral on the left breast and 9 o’clock is lateral on the right. The summary translates it into the part of the breast (for example, upper outer). |
| Distance from the nipple | 0–120 mm, measured in the frontal plane from the nipple. 0–10 mm reads as just behind the nipple. If the distance passes the edge of the model breast, the tumour is drawn near its edge and the summary says so. |
| Longest diameter | 3–80 mm, with matching numeric input and slider. |
| Depth | Front, middle or back (near the chest wall), when the report gives it. |
| Abnormal armpit node | Shows one axillary node in purple when the report describes one. It does not show how many are involved. |
| Breast size | Small, medium or large: an illustrative choice, not a measurement. |
Explain a selected plan
Choose wide local excision or mastectomy for the breast, and sentinel lymph node biopsy or axillary node clearance for the armpit. What is removed colours the tissue teal; After surgery shows the breast afterwards with a typical scar. The team selects the plan. Reconstruction, radiotherapy, drug treatments and oncoplastic techniques are not modelled.
Picture sheet and QR code
Capture up to four views with Snapshot, then use Picture sheet (PDF). The sheet can include a help and support page. The QR link stores validated model settings only, with no names, notes or contact details. Changing any model setting clears older snapshots.
Limits
- One tumour is illustrated. More than one tumour, DCIS extent, skin or chest wall involvement, and spread beyond the armpit are not shown.
- The breast’s shape and the lymph nodes’ positions are schematic. The model shows a female chest; breast cancer in men is not illustrated.
- Scars are typical examples; the actual incision depends on the operation and the person.
Sources and review
Practising breast surgeon review is still needed for clinical teaching use. Please send corrections through feedback.