Radiologist Evaluation of DEI Breast Specimen Imaging

摘要

The purpose of this study is to determine the potential utility of a new imaging modality, Diffraction Enhanced Imaging, DEI. The long-term goal of this program is to develop a clinically-based DEI system for breast imaging. The first step is to identify the optimal DEI parameters for visualization of breast tissue structures and use these parameters to develop a conceptual design for a clinical DEI system. In order to standardize the statistical analysis, mammography phantoms were used to simulate breast tissue. Breast imaging requires a high degree of spatial resolution to visualize abnormalities in the breast, such as calcifications, which can often be as small as 20-50 microns in diameter when clinically important. Two challenging phantoms designed to test the resolving ability of an imaging system were chosen for this study. The following parameters were varied in the acquisition process: beam energy, analyzer crystal configuration, and crystal lattice plane. The specific parameter values must be known before a 'compact' machine can be designed. To determine which parameter values provide images of most use to readers, a reader study was performed where readers score images taken at each of the parameter values according to which images yield the image information.