Breast cancer surgery with augmented reality, a clinical research paper published in April 2021 in the medical journal The Breast, has been selected for inclusion in Elsevier’s World Cancer Day 2022 article collection. This collection includes a curated line-up of some of the top research papers published in Elsevier’s Oncology journal portfolios.

Daniel Simões Lopes – an INESC-ID researcher within the Graphics and Interaction Research Area and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico – is one of the authors of this paper, the pioneering digital technology of which had already been recognized with the “Best and Greatest in Portuguese Technology” award in the Innovation category by the Portuguese technology magazine Exame Informática in 2020.

This landmark paper described the first use of an “augmented reality” headset by a surgeon – Pedro Gouveia, a physician from the Breast Unit of the Champalimaud Clinical Centre who performed the surgery and the corresponding author of this study – so they could visualize a virtual representation of the tumor in real time while extracting it from the patient. As the research paper itself states, it described “the first experimental test with a digital non-invasive method for intra-operative breast cancer localization using augmented reality to guide breast conservative surgery”, concluding that this type of surgery with augmented reality “can pave the way for a digital non-invasive method for intra-operative tumor localization.”

World Cancer Day, marked on 04 February, is an international campaign to raise awareness of cancer, encouraging its prevention, detection, and treatment, while supporting all those living with cancer.