This work compares the visibility of spheres and simulated masses in 2D-mammography and tomosynthesis systems using human observer studies. Performing comparison studies between breast imaging systems poses a number of practical challenges within a clinical environment. We therefore adopted a simulation approach which included synthetic breast blocks, a validated lesion simulation model and a set of validated image modelling tools as a viable alternative to clinical trials. A series of 4-alternative forced choice (4AFC) human observer experiments has been conducted for signal detection tasks using masses and spheres as targets. Five physicists participated in the study viewing images with a 5mm target at a range of contrast levels and 60 trials per experimental condition. The results showed that tomosynthesis has a lower threshold contrast than 2D-mammography for masses and spheres, and that detection studies using spheres may produce overly-optimistic threshold contrast values.

Date Published: 18 March 2015
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 9412, Medical Imaging 2015: Physics of Medical Imaging, 94121T (18 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2081878

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9412:
Medical Imaging 2015: Physics of Medical Imaging
Christoph Hoeschen; Despina Kontos, Editor(s)