Mia K Markey

University of Texas at Austin | UT · Department of Biomedical Engineering

This paper describes our implementation of a conversation series focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within an existing National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. While many REU programs actively recruit diverse participants, few include instructional time dedicated to DEI topics. Here, we share...

Purpose To inform bra design by analyzing 3D surface images of breast cancer patients who underwent autologous breast reconstruction. Methods We computed bra design measurements on 3D surface images of patients who underwent unilateral and bilateral autologous breast reconstruction. Breast measurements and right-left symmetry between preoperative b...

Purpose: Saliency models that predict observers' visual attention to facial differences could enable psychosocial interventions to help patients and their families anticipate staring behaviors. The purpose of this study was to assess the ability of existing saliency models to predict observers' visual attention to acquired facial differences arisi...

Objectives: Body image adjustment is a crucial issue for patients with facial cancer, but body image-specific interventions are scarce. We report results of a novel psychotherapeutic intervention to address body image concerns during acute postoperative recovery following facial reconstructive surgery. Our primary aims were to evaluate the interve...

Comfortable and well-fitting bras are necessary for good quality of life but hard to find for women who undergo reconstruction after breast cancer treatment. This study aimed to provide data to inform bra designs for breast cancer survivors. We measured anatomical distances used in bra design on 3D clinical photographs of patients who underwent uni...

Background Satisfaction with the breast aesthetic outcome is an expectation of breast reconstruction surgery, which is an integral part of cancer treatment for many patients. We evaluated post reconstruction breast symmetry in 82 female patients using distance and volume measurements. Objectives Clinical factors, such as reconstruction type (impla...

Background Conventional modality requires several days observation by Holter monitor to differentiate atrial fibrillation (AF) between Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) and Non-paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (Non-PAF). Rapid and practical differentiating approach is needed. Objective To develop a machine learning model that observes 10-s of sta...

Appearance counseling is an important component of the consent process for breast reconstruction. The purpose of appearance counseling is to help the patient form realistic expectations of what she might look like after breast reconstruction. In this article, we introduce a recommender system, "BreastDecisions," for appearance counseling that sugge...

Insurance fraud is ranked second in the list of expensive crimes in the United States, with healthcare fraud being the second highest amongst all insurance fraud. Contrary to the popular belief, insurance fraud is not a victimless crime. The cost of crime is passed onto law-abiding citizens in the form of increased premiums or serious harm or dange...

Significance: Raman spectroscopy (RS) provides an automated approach for assisting Mohs micrographic surgery for skin cancer diagnosis; however, the specificity of RS is limited by the high spectral similarity between tumors and normal tissues structures. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) provides morphological and cytological details by which...

Significance: Raman spectroscopy (RS) provides an automated approach for assisting Mohs micrographic surgery for skin cancer diagnosis; however, the specificity of RS is limited by the high spectral similarity between tumors and normal tissues structures. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) provides morphological and cytological details by which...

A patient’s comprehension and memory of conversations with their providers plays an important role in their healthcare. Adult breast cancer patients whose legal sex was female and who underwent treatment at the Center for Reconstructive Surgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center were asked to indicate which breast reconstruction p...

As the human breast undergoes complex, large-scale, fully three dimensional deformations in vivo, three-dimensional (3D) characterization of its mechanical behavior is fundamental to its diagnosis, treatment, and surgical modifications. Its anisotropic, heterogeneous fibrous structure results in complex behavior at both the tissue and organ levels. M...

Raman spectroscopy (RS) is a promising tool for skin cancer but limited to low specificity. We present a method to increase the specificity of RS diagnosis using reflectance confocal microscopy images and deep learning. 1. Introduction Mohs micrographic surgery (Mohs) is one of the most effective methods to treat nonmelanoma skin cancer[1], [2]. Mo...

Significance Raman spectroscopy may be useful to assist Mohs micrographic surgery for skin cancer diagnosis; however, the specificity of Raman spectroscopy is limited by the high spectral similarity between tumors and normal tissues structures such as epidermis and hair follicles. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) can provide imaging guidance w...

Introduction Although decisions about breast reconstruction surgery include patients’ perspectives, little is known about which options patients recall discussing and how their psychosocial factors influence their recall. The purpose of this study was to explore whether psychosocial factors were associated with the breast reconstruction options a p...

Healthcare fraud is an expensive, white-collar crime in the United States, and it is not a victimless crime. Costs associated with fraud are passed on to the population in the form of increased premiums or serious harm to beneficiaries. There is an intense need for digital healthcare fraud detection systems to evolve in combating this societal thre...

Although pre- and postoperative three-dimensional (3D) photography are well-established in breast reconstruction, intraoperative 3D photography is not. We demonstrate the process of intraoperative acquisition and visualization of 3D photographs for breast reconstruction and present clinicians' opinions about intraoperative visualization tools. Met...

Significance: Sub-diffuse optical properties may serve as useful cancer biomarkers, and wide-field heatmaps of these properties could aid physicians in identifying cancerous tissue. Sub-diffuse spatial frequency domain imaging (sd-SFDI) can reveal such wide-field maps, but the current time cost of experimentally validated methods for rendering the...

Patients’ preferences regarding changing or maintaining their breast size after mastectomy and reconstruction are important but understudied determinants of post-surgical satisfaction and quality of life. The goal of this study was to identify factors associated with preferences for changing or maintaining breast size for women undergoing breast re...

Raman spectroscopy has shown great potential in detecting nonmelanoma skin cancer accurately and quickly; however, little direct evidence exists on the sensitivity of measurements to the underlying anatomy. Here, we aimed to correlate Raman measurements directly to the underlying tissue anatomy. We acquired Raman spectra of ex vivo skin tissue from...

This article presents a comprehensive review of the use of quantitative measurements based on breast images to assess fat retention, breast aesthetics, and fat necrosis after autologous fat grafting. Breast volume measured from MRI and 3-dimensional surface images is widely used as a measure of fat retention. Breast aesthetics are assessed from a c...

INTRODUCTION Breast reconstruction surgery is an integral part of breast cancer treatment that aims to restore breast appearance after mastectomy. We assessed breast symmetry following breast reconstruction using measures of distance and volume. MATERIAL AND METHODS Patients undergoing breast reconstruction surgery were enrolled in an IRB approved...

Purpose: Current skin cancer detection relies on dermatologists' visual assessments of moles directly or dermoscopically. Our goal is to show that our similarity assessment algorithm on dermoscopic images can perform as well as a dermatologist's assessment. Approach: Given one target mole and two other moles from the same patient, our model determi...

Objectives: The association of Lewis antigen phenotype with survival of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma was investigated. Methods: A total of 1187 patients diagnosed with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were evaluated in a prospective cohort. Patients were classified into 3 different groups according to Lewis antigen phenotype: L...

A key challenge in melanoma diagnosis is the large number of unnecessary biopsies on benign nevi, which requires significant amounts of time and money. To reduce unnecessary biopsies while still accurately detecting melanoma lesions, we propose using Raman spectroscopy as a non-invasive, fast, and inexpensive method for generating a “second opinion...

The standard‐of‐care for non‐melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), including basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), is surgical excision of the tumor. To ensure removal of the entire tumor and minimize removal off healthy tissue, a tool for quick discrimination between cancerous and normal skin is needed. We propose using diffuse refl...

Purpose To use 3D surface photography to quantitatively measure breast cosmesis within the framework of a randomized clinical trial of conventionally fractionated (CF) and hypofractionated (HF) whole breast irradiation (WBI), to identify how 3D measurements are associated with patient- and physician-reported cosmesis, and to determine whether objec...

An important aspect of breast cancer survivorship is finding comfortable undergarments that work for women’s post-treatment bodies. Patients who undergo mastectomy, including both those who do and do not receive reconstruction, need bras that can accommodate new breast shape, size, and feel, as well as scarring and skin sensitivity. Our research wi...

Objectives: Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform breast cancer care. However, most scientists, engineers, and clinicians are not prepared to contribute to the AI revolution in healthcare. In this paper, we describe our experiences teaching a new undergraduate course for American students that aims to prepare the next generation for...

We assessed the utility of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for improving surgical guidance of skin tumor resections. Our results from 34 patients show a high ability to discriminate between carcinoma and normal surrounding skin.

We demonstrate a machine learning approach that renders real-time subdiffuse optical property (γ) maps from spatial frequency domain images, laying the foundation for use in surgical guidance.

Spontaneous Raman micro‐spectroscopy has demonstrated great potential in delineating tumor margins; however, it is limited by slow acquisition speed. We describe a superpixel acquisition approach that can expedite acquisition between ~100‐10,000x as compared to point‐by‐point scanning by trading off spatial resolution. We present the first demonstr...

Characterization of material properties of human skin is required to develop a physics-based biomechanical model that can predict deformation of female breast after cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. In this paper, we have adopted an experimental approach to characterize the biaxial response of human skin using bulge tests. Skin specimens were ha...

Pectoral muscle segmentation is a crucial step in various computer-aided applications of breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Due to imaging artifact and homogeneity between the pectoral and breast regions, the pectoral muscle boundary estimation is not a trivial task. In this paper, a fully automatic segmentation method based on deep learning...

Objective To identify rates of nonadherence to orthodontic treatment among youth with cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) and to compare demographic and clinical characteristics of patients categorized as adherent or nonadherent. Design Retrospective chart review. Setting Orthodontic treatment program affiliated with a US pediatric hospital-based cran...

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is a non‐invasive, fast, and low‐cost technology with potential to assist cancer diagnosis. The goal of this study was to test the capability of our physiological model, a computational Monte Carlo lookup table inverse model, for non‐melanoma skin cancer diagnosis. We applied this model on a clinical DRS datas...

Plastic surgeons aim to achieve breast symmetry during cosmetic and reconstructive breast surgery. They rely on measures of breast size, position, and projection to determine and achieve breast symmetry, but normative data on symmetry in preoperative breast reconstruction patients are scarce. Methods: A statistical evaluation was performed to exa...

Objective: (1) To explore orthodontists' perceptions of nonadherence and related factors in their patients with craniofacial conditions; (2) to examine differences in adherence perceptions by provider characteristics; (3) to evaluate current adherence interventions. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: United States-based orthodontists affiliated...

INTRODUCTION Achieving breast symmetry and mitigating ptosis are important aims of cosmetic and reconstructive breast surgery. Breast asymmetry typically occurs when the left and right breasts differ in size, shape, or position. A few studies have associated breast asymmetry to hormonal changes and breast cancer risk. Similarly, changes in breast p...

Achieving adequate margins during tumor margin resection is critical to minimize the recurrence rate and maximize positive patient outcomes during skin cancer surgery. Although Mohs micrographic surgery is by far the most effective method to treat nonmelanoma skin cancer, it can be limited by its inherent required infrastructure, including time-con...

We propose a video compression framework using conditional Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). We rely on two encoders: one that deploys a standard video codec and another which generates low-level maps via a pipeline of down-sampling, a newly devised soft edge detector, and a novel lossless compression scheme. For decoding, we use a standard v...

This guest editorial introduces the special section on Medical Image Perceptions and Observer Performance.

Objective Our long‐term goal is to develop a normative feedback intervention to support head and neck cancer patients in forming realistic expectations about how other people in non‐social group settings will respond to their appearance. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between observer ratings of facial disfigurement and observer rati...

Raman spectroscopy (RS) has demonstrated great potential for in vivo cancer screening; however, the biophysical changes that occur for specific diagnoses remain unclear. We recently developed an inverse biophysical skin cancer model to address this issue. Here, we presented the first demonstration of in vivo melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer (NM...

Background: Combining optimized cognitive (Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive subscale, ADAS-Cog) and atrophy markers of Alzheimer's disease for tracking progression in clinical trials may provide greater sensitivity than currently used methods, which have yielded negative results in multiple recent trials. Furthermore, it is critical...

Objective: Reconstruction as part of treatment for breast cancer is aimed at mitigating body image concerns post-mastectomy. Although algorithms have been developed to objectively assess breast reconstruction outcomes, associations between objectively quantified breast aesthetic appearance and patient-reported body image outcomes have not been exa...

Purose: Reconstruction as art of treatment for breast cancer is aimed at mitigating body image concerns ost-mastectomy. Although algorithms are increasingly being develoed to objectively assess breast reconstruction outcomes, revious research has not evaluated associations between objectively quantified breast aesthetic aearance and atient-reorted...

Model observers are widely used in task-based assessments of medical image quality. The presence of multiple abnormalities in a single set of images, such as in multifocal multicentric breast cancer (MFMC), has an immense clinical impact on treatment planning and survival outcomes. Detecting multiple breast tumors is challenging as MFMC is relative...

Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) acquires a series of projection images from different angles as an x-ray source rotates around the breast. Such imaging geometry lends DBT naturally to stereoscopic viewing as two projection images with a reasonable separation angle can easily form a stereo pair. This simulation study assessed the efficacy of ster...