Evaluating noise reduction techniques while considering anatomical noise in dual‐energy contrast‐enhanced mammography. Issue 5 (9th April 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Allec, Nicholas; Abbaszadeh, Shiva; Scott, Chris C.; Karim, Karim S.; Lewin, John M.
• Is Part Of: Medical physics. Volume 40:Issue 5(2013)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2013-04-09
• Subjects: Mammography -- Mammography -- Noise; image denoising -- mammography -- medical image processing; noise reduction -- anatomical noise -- dual‐energy imaging -- mammography; Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific applications -- Image data processing or generation, in general -- Image enhancement or restoration, e.g. from bit‐mapped to bit‐mapped creating a similar image; Medical imaging -- Image sensors -- Acoustic noise measurement -- Medical image smoothing -- Quantum noise -- Modulation transfer functions -- Cancer -- Mammography -- Systems analysis -- Image analysis; Medical physics -- Periodicals; Medical physics; Geneeskunde; Natuurkunde; Toepassingen; Biophysics; Periodicals; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 610.153
• DOI: 10.1118/1.4799841
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0094-2405

Abstract

Abstract : Purpose: : The authors describe modifications to previously developed cascaded systems analysis to include the anatomical noise in evaluation of dual‐energy noise reduction techniques. Previous models have ignored the anatomical noise in theoretical analysis of noise reduction techniques. The inclusion of anatomical noise leads to more accurate estimation of potential noise reduction improvements and optimization. Methods: : The model is applied to dual‐energy contrast‐enhanced mammography. The effect of linear noise reduction filters on the anatomical noise is taken into account using cascaded systems analysis. The noise model is included in the ideal observer detectability for performance evaluation of the noise reduction techniques. Results: : Dual‐energy image noise with and without including the effect of anatomical noise in noise reduction technique analysis is reported. The theoretical model is compared with clinical images from a previous dual‐energy contrast enhanced mammography clinical study and good agreement is observed. The results suggest that the inclusion of anatomical noise in the evaluation and comparison of noise reduction techniques is highly warranted for more accurate analysis. Conclusions: : This work establishes a useful extension to dual‐energy cascaded systems analysis for maximizing image quality using noise reduction techniques. The extension includes the effect of linear image filtering, such as that used for noise reduction, on anatomical noise. The results suggest that the inclusion of anatomical noise in the evaluation of noise reduction techniques can lead to more accurate optimization, noise, and performance estimations.