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Comparison of slot scanning digital mammography system with full‐field digital mammography system
Author(s) -
Lai ChaoJen,
Shaw Chris C.,
Geiser William,
Chen Lingyun,
Arribas Elsa,
Stephens Tanya,
Davis Paul L.,
Ayyar Geetha P.,
Dogan Basak E.,
Nguyen Victoria A.,
Whitman Gary J.,
Yang Wei T.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.2919768
Subject(s) - digital mammography , mammography , imaging phantom , nuclear medicine , microcalcification , breast imaging , receiver operating characteristic , biomedical engineering , medicine , breast cancer , cancer
The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare microcalcification detectability of two commercial full‐field digital mammography (DM) systems. The first unit was a flat panel based DM system (FFDM) which employed an anti‐scatter grid method to reject scatter, and the second unit was a charge‐coupled device‐based DM system (SSDM) which used scanning slot imaging geometry to reduce scatter radiation. Both systems have comparable scatter‐to‐primary ratios. In this study, 125–160 and 200 – 250 μ m calcium carbonate grains were used to simulate microcalcifications and imaged by both DM systems. The calcium carbonate grains were overlapped with a 5 ‐ cm ‐thick 50% adipose/50% glandular simulated breast tissue slab and an anthropomorphic breast phantom (RMI 165, Gammex) for imaging at two different mean glandular dose levels: 0.87 and 1.74 mGy . A reading study was conducted with seven board certified mammographers with images displayed on review workstations. A five‐point confidence level rating was used to score each detection task. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed and the area under the ROC curve ( A z ) was used to quantify and compare the performances of these two systems. The results showed that with the simulated breast tissue slab (uniform background), the SSDM system resulted in higherA z 's than the FFDM system at both MGD levels with the difference statistically significant at 0.87 mGy only. With the anthropomorphic breast phantom (tissue structure background), the SSDM system performed better than the FFDM system at 0.87 mGy but worse at 1.74 mGy . However, the differences were not found to be statistically significant.