A Novel 3D Stochastic Solid Breast Texture Model for X-Ray Breast Imaging

Abstract

Performance assessment of breast x-ray imaging systems through clinical imaging studies is expensive and may result in unreasonable high radiation doses to the patient. As an alternative, several research groups are investigating the potential of virtual clinical trials using realistic 3D breast texture models and simulated images from those models. This paper describes a mathematically defined solid 3D breast texture model based on the analysis of segmented clinical breast computed tomography images. The model employs stochastic geometry to mimic small and medium scale fibro-glandular and adipose tissue morphologies. Medium-scale morphology of each adipose compartment is simulated by a union of overlapping ellipsoids. The boundary of each ellipsoid consists of small Voronoi cells with average volume of 0.5 mm³, introducing a small-scale texture aspect. Model parameters were first empirically determined for almost entirely adipose breasts, scattered fibro-glandular dense breasts and heterogeneously dense breasts. Preliminary evaluation has shown that simulated mammograms and digital breast tomosynthesis images have a reasonable realistic visual appearance, depending though on simulated breast density. Statistical inference of model parameters from clinical breast computed tomography images for the variety of fibro-glandular and adipose tissue distributions observed in clinical images is ongoing.