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Purpose: In digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), radiologists need to review a stack of 20 to 80 tomosynthesis images, depending upon breast size. This causes a significant increase in reading time. However, it is currently unknown whether there is a perceptual benefit to viewing a mass in the 3D tomosynthesis volume. To answer this question, this study investigated whether adjacent lesion-containing planes provide additional information that aids lesion detection for DBT-like and breast CT-like (bCT) images., Method: Human reader detection performance was determined for low-contrast targets shown in a single tomosynthesis image at the center of the target (2D) or shown in the entire tomosynthesis image stack (3D). Using simulations, targets embedded in simulated breast backgrounds, and images were generated using a DBT-like (50 deg angular range) and a bCT-like (180 deg angular range) imaging geometry. Experiments were conducted with spherical and capsule-shaped targets. Eleven readers reviewed 1600 images in two-alternative forced-choice experiments. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and reading time were computed for the 2D and 3D reading modes for the DBT and bCT imaging geometries and for both target shapes., Results: Spherical lesion detection was higher in 2D mode than in 3D, for both DBT- and bCT-like images (DBT: AUC 2 D = 0.790 , AUC 3 D = 0.735 , P = 0.03 ; bCT: AUC 2 D = 0.869 , AUC 3 D = 0.716 , P < 0.05 ), but equivalent for capsule-shaped signals (DBT: AUC 2 D = 0.891 , AUC 3 D = 0.915 , P = 0.19 ; bCT: AUC 2 D = 0.854 , AUC 3 D = 0.847 , P = 0.88 ). Average reading time was up to 134% higher for 3D viewing ( P < 0.05 )., Conclusions: For the detection of low-contrast lesions, there is no inherent visual perception benefit to reviewing the entire DBT or bCT stack. The findings of this study could have implications for the development of 2D synthetic mammograms: a single synthesized 2D image designed to include all lesions present in the volume might allow readers to maintain detection performance at a significantly reduced reading time., (© 2023 The Authors.)

The channelized-Hotelling observer (CHO) was investigated as a surrogate of human observers in task-based image quality assessment. The CHO with difference-of-Gaussian (DoG) channels has shown potential for the prediction of human detection performance in digital mammography (DM) images. However, the DoG channels employ parameters that describe the shape of each channel. The selection of these parameters influences the performance of the DoG CHO and needs further investigation. The detection performance of the DoG CHO was calculated and correlated with the detection performance of three humans who evaluated DM images in 2-alternative forced-choice experiments. A set of DM images of an anthropomorphic breast phantom with and without calcification-like signals was acquired at four different dose levels. For each dose level, 200 square regions-of-interest (ROIs) with and without signal were extracted. Signal detectability was assessed on ROI basis using the CHO with various DoG channel parameters and it was compared to that of the human observers. It was found that varying these DoG parameter values affects the correlation ( r 2 ) of the CHO with human observers for the detection task investigated. In conclusion, it appears that the the optimal DoG channel sets that maximize the prediction ability of the CHO might be dependent on the type of background and signal of ROIs investigated., (© 2019 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).)

Mammography images undergo vendor-specific processing, which may be nonlinear, before radiologist interpretation. Therefore, to test the entire imaging chain, the effect of image processing should be included in the assessment of image quality, which is not current practice. For this purpose, model observers (MOs), in combination with anthropomorphic breast phantoms, are proposed to evaluate image quality in mammography. In this study, the nonprewhitening MO with eye filter and the channelized Hotelling observer were investigated. The goal of this study was to optimize the efficiency of the procedure to obtain the expected signal template from acquired images for the detection of a 0.25-mm diameter disk. Two approaches were followed: using acquired images with homogeneous backgrounds (approach 1) and images from an anthropomorphic breast phantom (approach 2). For quality control purposes, a straightforward procedure using a single exposure of a single disk was found adequate for both approaches. However, only approach 2 can yield templates from processed images since, due to its nonlinearity, image postprocessing cannot be evaluated using images of homogeneous phantoms. Based on the results of the current study, a phantom should be designed, which can be used for the objective assessment of image quality.