Quantitative and subjetive study of image quality in digital mammography

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, being the largest cause of mortality in this population. Mammography is currently the most used technique for the early detection of breast cancer. Nowadays, recent advances in the development of digital imaging systems have been related with an improvement in sensitivity of the test. One of the great challenges of mammograms is to produce a high quality image, in order to allow the detection of very small object, ensuring early diagnosis. The quantitative study of this problem is based on the determination of image contrast, spatial resolution and image noise. On the other hand, the image quality can also be assessed qualitatively defining detectability thresholds for phantoms. The main purpose of this project to evaluate quantitatively and qualitatively the quality of mammographic images acquired for breast simulators. This study will be conducted to different techniques of image acquisition (kVp and mAs) and combinations anode/filter and also for different types and thicknesses of breast phantoms. Therefore, we intend to correlate the quantitative and qualitative results of image quality to set detectability thresholds in mammography, and to determine the optimization conditions of image quality.