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A Statistical Method for Low Contrast Detectability Assessment in Digital Mammography

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Breast Imaging (IWDM 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNIP,volume 9699))

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Abstract

This study proposes a method to estimate low contrast detectability (LCD) applying a statistical method, based on the analysis of a uniform region. A dedicated test object was designed, made up of an acetate sheet equipped with a central uniform insert and an aluminium step wedge, allowing linear conversion from pixel values to millimeters of aluminium. A Matlab program for automated image analysis was developed. Phantom images were acquired on two different digital mammography systems. Reproducibility and sensitivity to exposure variations of the proposed method were investigated for different dose levels. Further the impact of scattering and attenuation on LCD was studied adding PMMA layers of variable thickness (2 to 7 cm) upon the acetate sheet during exposure in automatic exposure control modality. The statistical method turned out to be a reliable and rapid method for LCD evaluation. Applications include routine assessment of equipment performance for digital mammography systems.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Physics Department, San Gerardo Hospital, ASST Monza, Monza, Italy

    Chiara Spadavecchia, Raffaele Villa, Claudia Pasquali, Nicoletta Paruccini & Andrea Crespi

  2. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Chiara Spadavecchia & Raffaele Villa

  3. Medical Physics Department, Bolzano Hospital, Bolzano, Italy

    Nadia Oberhofer

Authors
  1. Chiara Spadavecchia
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  2. Raffaele Villa
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  3. Claudia Pasquali
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  4. Nicoletta Paruccini
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  5. Nadia Oberhofer
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  6. Andrea Crespi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raffaele Villa .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lund Univ. and Skåne University Hospital, Sweden

    Anders Tingberg

  2. Lund Univ. and Unilabs, Malmö, Sweden

    Kristina Lång

  3. Lund Univ. and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

    Pontus Timberg

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Spadavecchia, C., Villa, R., Pasquali, C., Paruccini, N., Oberhofer, N., Crespi, A. (2016). A Statistical Method for Low Contrast Detectability Assessment in Digital Mammography. In: Tingberg, A., Lång, K., Timberg, P. (eds) Breast Imaging. IWDM 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9699. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41546-8_67

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41546-8_67

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41545-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41546-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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