Mass detectability in dedicated breast CT: A simulation study with the application of volume noise removal

• Published in: 2008 8th IEEE International Symposium on BioInformatics and BioEngineering Vol. 8; pp. 1 - 6
• Main Authors: Xia, J.Q., Lo, J.Y.
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2008
• Subjects: Breast cancer; breast CT; Cancer detection; Computed tomography; Equations; Image reconstruction; Imaging phantoms; lesion detection; Mammography; noise; Noise level; Noise reduction; observer study; Spatial resolution; tomography
• ISBN: 1424428440; 9781424428441
• DOI: 10.1109/BIBE.2008.4696788

Dedicated breast Computed Tomography (CT) is an emerging new technique for breast cancer imaging. Breast CT data can be acquired at a dose level as low as the conventional two-view mammography. Since the dose is equally split into hundreds of projection views, each projection image contains non-ignorable quantum noise. This study is aimed at investigating how volume noise removal affects the mass detectability in breast CT. A Partial Diffusion Equation (PDE) based denoising technique was applied before the reconstruction of either a simulated breast volume embedded with a contrast-detail mass phantom or a real human subject breast CT volume embedded with a simulated spherical mass. By applying a mathematical observer, it is found that the PDE volume noise removal technique improves the mass detectability in breast CT in a statistically significant sense.