Impulse response characterization of breast tomosynthesis reconstruction with parallel imaging configurations

Abstract

Early detection, diagnosis, and suitable treatment are known to significantly improve the chance of survival for breast cancer (BC) patients. To date, the most cost effective method for screening and early detection is mammography, which is also the tool that has demonstrated its ability to reduce BC mortality. Tomosynthesis is an emerging technology that offers an alternative to conventional two-dimensional mammography. Tomosynthesis produces three-dimensional (volumetric) images of the breast that may be superior to planar imaging due to improved visualization. In this paper we examined the effect of varying the number of projections (N) and total view angle (VA) on the shift-and-add (SAA), back projection (BP) and filtered back projection (FBP) image reconstruction response characterized by impulse response (IR) simulations. IR data were generated by simulating the projection images of a very thin wire, using various combinations of VA and N. Results suggested that BP and FBP performed better for in-plane performance than that of SAA. With bigger number of projection images, the investigated reconstruction algorithms performed the best by obtaining sharper in-focus IR with simulated parallel imaging configurations.