Preliminary investigation of the clinical usefulness of super-high-resolution LCDs with 9 and 15 mega-sub-pixels: observation studies with phantoms

Abstract

Our purpose in this study was to evaluate the preliminary clinical efficacy of soft-copy reading of digital mammography, for a 15-mega-sub-pixel (MsP) and a 9-MsP super-high-resolution liquid-crystal display (SHR-LCD) by use of an independent sub-pixel driving technology. We performed three kinds of phantom observation studies by six radiological technologists. Detectability of a contrast-detail phantom and simulated small objects (SSOs) resembling microcalcifications (MCLs), and shape discrimination ability of SSOs with round and square shapes, were examined and compared with a 5-MP conventional LCD (5-MP LCD). In each study, four types of display magnification ratio were used. The detectability and the shape discrimination ability of the 15-MsP SHR-LCD were highest among the three LCDs of most of the display magnification ratios. The 9-MsP SHR-LCD indicated a higher or equal performance as compared with the 5-MP LCD in the SSO detection and shape studies. The results of our study demonstrated that the SHR-LCDs had good potential to detect MCLs and to evaluate the shape in high-resolution digital mammography.

Overall noise characteristics of reduced images on liquid crystal display and advantages of independent subpixel driving technology

“…12 The noisecharacteristic advantages were more remarkable with more reduced magnification, and it should be helpful in the image diagnoses by large-matrix images such as digital mammography, in addition to spatial-resolution improvement, as previously reported. [8][9][10] The advantage would be also appreciated in case that displays with enough resolution are not available.…”

“…Observerperformance studies have reported that ISD contributed to better signal detection of phantom and clinical images owing to improved spatial resolution. [9][10][11] These reports emphasized that high resolutions achieved better signal detection and benefitted clinical image diagnosis; nevertheless, the resolution was improved only in the subpixel direction and the pixel size was asymmetric. There have been few reports on the noisecharacteristic contributions by ISD; therefore, we compared the overall noise characteristics of displayed images on the LCD with and without ISD and demonstrated how ISD affected the noise characteristics.…”

Visual evaluation and usefulness of medical high-resolution liquid-crystal displays with use of independent sub-pixel driving technology

“…In independent sub-pixel driving (ISD) technology, aiming at high-resolution displays, three sub-pixels contained in one pixel of the LCD-independent display images, which increase the threefold resolution in the direction of the subpixels, facilitates a faithful image display with less curtailed pixels [1,2]. We investigated the characteristics of ISD technology by applying 15 mega-sub-pixel (15 MsP), 9 mega-sub-pixel (9 MsP), and 6 mega-sub-pixel (6 MsP) LCDs and the visual perception of these by observers to evaluate their usefulness as a method of mammographic image display.…”