A comparative study of physical image quality in digital and synthetic mammography from commercially available mammography systems

Abstract

We present a comparison between full field digital mammography and synthetic mammography, performed on several mammography systems from four different manufacturers. The analysis is carried out on both the digital and synthetic images of two commercially available mammography phantoms, and focuses on a set of objective metrics that encode the geometrical appearance of imaging features of diagnostic interest. In particular, we measured sizes and contrasts of several clusters of microcalcification specks, shapes and contrasts of circular masses, and the power spectrum of background regions mimicking the heterogeneous texture of the breast parenchyma. Despite the potential issues of tomosynthesis in terms of image blurring, the synthetic images do not highlight any globally significant differences in the rendering of the details of interest, when compared to the original digital mammograms: relative contrasts are generally preserved, as well as the geometry of broad structures. We conclude that, as far as the considered objective metrics are concerned, the image quality of synthetic mammography does not exhibit significant differences with respect to the one of full field digital mammography, for all the considered systems.

Quantitative assessment of image quality in digital breast tomosynthesis

“…DBT has shown to improve detection of low contrast lesions (masses embedded in dense parenchyma) [8], while its contribution in the detection of microcalcification (MC) clusters is controversial [9][10][11][12][13]. The lack of lesion ground truth in case of clinical data renders quantitative image quality-based mammographic mode intercomparison a challenging task, while phantom studies can overcome this limitation [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], while criticised for lacking realism compared to clinical data.…”

“…Realistic background has been considered in quantitative image quality assessment studies [17,22,23,25], however, the analysed MC cluster objects consisted of a small number of MC particles (up to 6), further being of ideal spherical or cylindrical shape, and characterized by a non-realistic imaging appearance such as, size, shape, and spatial distribution of the individual particles. Thus, the quantitative image quality evaluation Finally, analysis of both uniform and non-uniform parts of the TORMAM phantom was repeated for an "upside-down" TORMAM test object setup to consider the influence of location of the MC clusters along the z-axis (distance from detector cover) on MC cluster SDNR.…”

“…A number of issues remains open for in this thesis to complete quantitative image quality analysis of MC clusters in the three mammographic modes, such as MC cluster shape analysis [23] are envisioned as immediate next steps. μαστογραφία.…”

“…Η ΨΤΜ έχει δείξει ότι βελτιώνει την ανίχνευση αλλοιώσεων χαμηλής αντίθεσης (μάζες ενσωματωμένες σε πυκνό παρέγχυμα) [8], ενώ η συνεισφορά της στην ανίχνευση ομάδων μικροαποτιτανώσεων (ΜΑ) είναι αμφιλεγόμενη [9][10][11][12][13]. Η έλλειψη πίνακα αληθείας αλλοιώσεων σε κλινικά δεδομένα καθιστά την διασύγκριση των τεχνικών απεικόνισης μέσω ποσοτικής ανάλυσης της εικόνας δύσκολο και προκλητικό έργο, ενώ οι μελέτες που χρησιμοποιούν ομοιώματα μπορούν να ξεπεράσουν αυτόν τον περιορισμό [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], ενώ επικρίνονται για έλλειψη ρεαλισμού συγκρινόμενα με τα κλινικά δεδομένα.…”

“…Το ρεαλιστικό υπόβαθρο έχει ληφθεί υπόψη στις ποσοτικές μελέτες αξιολόγησης ποιότητας εικόνας [17,22,23,25] Ένας αριθμός προβλημάτων παραμένει ανοιχτός ώστε να ολοκληρωθεί η ποσοτική ανάλυση ποιότητα εικόνας για τις ομάδες μικροαποτιτανώσεων στις τρείς τεχνικές απεικόνισης, όπως είναι η ανάλυση του σχήματος των ομάδων μικροαποτιτανώσεων [23], και το οποίο σχεδιάζεται στα άμεσα επόμενα βήματα.…”