An experimental study of the accuracy in measurement of modulation transfer function using an edge method

Abstract

Image evaluation is necessary in digital radiography (DR) which is widely used in medical imaging. Among parameters of image evaluation, modulation transfer function (MTF) is the important factor in the field of medical imaging and necessary to obtain detective quantum efficiency (DQE) which represents overall performance of the detector signal-to-noise ratio. However, the accurate measurement of MTF is still not easy because of geometric effect, electric noise, quantum noise, and truncation error. Therefore, in order to improve accuracy of MTF, four experimental methods were tested in this study such as changing the tube current, applying smoothing method in edge spread function (ESF), adjusting line spread function (LSF) range, and changing tube angle. Our results showed that MTF’s fluctuation was decreased by high tube current and smoothing method. However, tube current should not exceed detector saturation and smoothing in ESF causes a distortion in ESF and MTF. In addition, decreasing LSF range diminished fluctuation and the number of sampling in MTF and high tube angle generates degradation in MTF. Based on these results, excessively low tube current and the smoothing method should be avoided. Also, optimal range of LSF considering reduction of fluctuation and the number of sampling in MTF was necessary and precise tube angle is essential to obtain an accurate MTF. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that accurate MTF can be acquired.