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Mark Ruschina, Pontus Timberga, Tony Svahna, Ingvar Anderssonb, Bengt Hemdala, Sören
Mattssona, Magnus Båthc, and Anders Tingberga
aDepartment of Medical Radiation Physics, Lund University, Malmö University Hospital, SE-
205 02, Malmö, Sweden bDepartment of Radiology, Lund University, Malmö University
Hospital, SE-205 02, Malmö, Sweden cDepartment of Medical Physics and Biomedical
Engineering, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, SE-413 45, Göteborg, Sweden
Background
Breast tomosynthesis (BT) is a three-dimensional (3D) x-ray imaging technique in which
low-dose images are acquired under rotation of the x- ray tube through a limited angle.
These low-dose images are used to mathematically reconstruct a 3D volume image of the
breast, thus potentially increasing the visibility of lesions compared to the visibility in
standard, two-dimensional mammography images.
Aims and Methods
The aims of this project include: clinical evaluation of BT with a limited number of cancer
patients; developing phantoms and methods for evaluation of image quality; determination
of the optimal combination of image acquisition and reconstruction parameters; and
determining the fundamental lesion detection limits for BT.
A prototype, research BT system is installed at the Malmö University Hospital. Ethical
approval has been obtained to acquire images of selected patients undergoing
mammography. There is also access to breast specimens and phantom materials for
testing different image acquisition parameters, including number of low-dose image
acquisitions, x-ray beam quality, detector-operating mode, and absorbed dose.
Results
The results of a pilot study (40 patients) indicate an increase in tumor visibility in BT
images. The results of another study indicate that tumors with four times lower contrast
can be detected by using BT instead of standard mammography. Optimization of image
acquisition parameters in BT has been performed using 31 breast specimens. Finally, a
novel contrast-detail phantom for testing image quality in BT has been constructed and
will be presented.
Conclusions
Preliminary results from all studies have indicated a potential for an increase in cancer
detection sensitivity by using BT compared to mammography.
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