Effects of slabbing and slice thickness on image reading time and micro calcification detection in breast tomosynthesis
(2011)Medical Physics Programme
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Breast tomosynthesis (BT) is a new X-ray modality that reconstructs the breast volume in many slices instead of, as in mammography, showing a single 2D projection of the breast. The slice thickness is typically 1 mm for clinically used BT-units. In screening the review of breast images with BT takes two to four times longer than the review of mammography images. In an effort to reduce the review time for BT, slabbing (a post-processing technique to make thicker slices) or reconstruction of thicker slices is investigated in this work. This work also includes an initial study on whether slabbing can make it easier to detect microcalcification.
This study was divided into three parts, investigating if it is possible to reduce BT... (More) - Breast tomosynthesis (BT) is a new X-ray modality that reconstructs the breast volume in many slices instead of, as in mammography, showing a single 2D projection of the breast. The slice thickness is typically 1 mm for clinically used BT-units. In screening the review of breast images with BT takes two to four times longer than the review of mammography images. In an effort to reduce the review time for BT, slabbing (a post-processing technique to make thicker slices) or reconstruction of thicker slices is investigated in this work. This work also includes an initial study on whether slabbing can make it easier to detect microcalcification.
This study was divided into three parts, investigating if it is possible to reduce BT reviewing time. In the first part many different slabbing methods were tested together with different reconstructed slice thicknesses on 16 hybrid images and the best three conditions with respect to image quality were further investigated in the second part. The second part was a visual grading analysis task to compare how the image quality of the three selected methods differs from that of the regular sets of images that are used today. One radiologist and three medical physicists participated in the study which was based on 27 pathological images. The final part was a free-response detection study where two radiologists reviewed 30 normal and 5 abnormal images, on two different occasions. The review times of the method which scored highest in the second part and the image presentation mode used in clinical routine work were measured and compered. This work also includes an initial study investigating if slabbed images can make it easier to detect microcalcification cluster.
The results of the final part showed that one radiologist had a significant reduced review time when slices were combined to slabs for the regular images while the other radiologist did not show any significant time difference between the two sets of images. When the two results were combined no significant difference could be seen between the two sets of images. The results of the study on improving microcalcification detection suggested that using images with slabbing instead of regular ones is not helpful to improve the detection.
The study was inconclusive, suggesting that more radiologists have to be included to predict if slabbing can reduce reading time. The results of the reading times of the two radiologists were too divergent to be generalized. The results from the microcalcification study showed that other methods must be investigated in preference to slabbing. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/2273098
- author
- Andersson, Martin
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2011
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Röntgen
- language
- English
- id
- 2273098
- date added to LUP
- 2012-01-02 15:15:03
- date last changed
- 2012-01-02 15:15:03
@misc{2273098,
abstract = {{Breast tomosynthesis (BT) is a new X-ray modality that reconstructs the breast volume in many slices instead of, as in mammography, showing a single 2D projection of the breast. The slice thickness is typically 1 mm for clinically used BT-units. In screening the review of breast images with BT takes two to four times longer than the review of mammography images. In an effort to reduce the review time for BT, slabbing (a post-processing technique to make thicker slices) or reconstruction of thicker slices is investigated in this work. This work also includes an initial study on whether slabbing can make it easier to detect microcalcification.
This study was divided into three parts, investigating if it is possible to reduce BT reviewing time. In the first part many different slabbing methods were tested together with different reconstructed slice thicknesses on 16 hybrid images and the best three conditions with respect to image quality were further investigated in the second part. The second part was a visual grading analysis task to compare how the image quality of the three selected methods differs from that of the regular sets of images that are used today. One radiologist and three medical physicists participated in the study which was based on 27 pathological images. The final part was a free-response detection study where two radiologists reviewed 30 normal and 5 abnormal images, on two different occasions. The review times of the method which scored highest in the second part and the image presentation mode used in clinical routine work were measured and compered. This work also includes an initial study investigating if slabbed images can make it easier to detect microcalcification cluster.
The results of the final part showed that one radiologist had a significant reduced review time when slices were combined to slabs for the regular images while the other radiologist did not show any significant time difference between the two sets of images. When the two results were combined no significant difference could be seen between the two sets of images. The results of the study on improving microcalcification detection suggested that using images with slabbing instead of regular ones is not helpful to improve the detection.
The study was inconclusive, suggesting that more radiologists have to be included to predict if slabbing can reduce reading time. The results of the reading times of the two radiologists were too divergent to be generalized. The results from the microcalcification study showed that other methods must be investigated in preference to slabbing.}},
author = {{Andersson, Martin}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Effects of slabbing and slice thickness on image reading time and micro calcification detection in breast tomosynthesis}},
year = {{2011}},
}