Development of a model for breast tomosynthesis image acquisition

I. Reiser; R. M. Nishikawa; E. Y. Sidky; M. R. Chinander; P. Seifi

doi:10.1117/12.713752

14 March 2007 Development of a model for breast tomosynthesis image acquisition

I. Reiser, R. M. Nishikawa, E. Y. Sidky, M. R. Chinander, P. Seifi

Proceedings Volume 6510, Medical Imaging 2007: Physics of Medical Imaging; 65103D (2007) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.713752
Event: Medical Imaging, 2007, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

Tomosynthesis is emerging as a promising modality for breast imaging. Several manufacturers have developed prototype units and have acquired clinical and phantom data. Scanning configurations of these prototypes vary. So far, studies relating scanning configuration to image quality have been limited to those geometries that could be implemented on a particular prototype. To overcome this limitation, we are developing a model of breast tomosynthesis image acquisition system, which models the formation of the x-ray image and x-ray detector. The x-ray image of an object is computed analytically for a polychromatic x-ray beam. Objects consist of volumetric regions that are bounded by either a planar, ellipsoidal, cylindrical or conical surface, allowing for a variety of objects. xray scatter is computed by convolving the image with a scatter point-spread function. Poisson noise according to the entrance exposure is added to the image. The x-ray detector in this model is composed of a phosphor screen followed by a detector array. X-ray interactions in the screen are modeled as depth-dependent. The optical output of the screen is converted into digital units using a gain factor which was assumed to be Gaussian distributed. To validate this data model, we acquired images of a contrast-detail phantom on a stereotactic biopsy unit. The x-ray source is mounted on an arm that pivots in a plane about the detector center. The x-ray detector consists of a Min-R type screen fiber-optically coupled to a CCD camera. To compare actual and simulated data, we compared line profiles as well as several automatically extracted image features such as contrast-to-noise ratio, contrast, area and radial gradient index. Good agreement was found between simulation and physical data, indicating that we can now use this model to explore image quality for various tomosynthesis scanning configurations.

Citation Download Citation

I. Reiser, R. M. Nishikawa, E. Y. Sidky, M. R. Chinander, and P. Seifi "Development of a model for breast tomosynthesis image acquisition", Proc. SPIE 6510, Medical Imaging 2007: Physics of Medical Imaging, 65103D (14 March 2007); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.713752

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