Optimal angular dose distribution to acquire 3D and extra 2D images for digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal non-uniform angular dose distribution to improve the quality of the 3D reconstructed images and to acquire extra 2D projection images. In this analysis, 7 acquisition sets were generated by using four different values for the number of projections (11, 15, 21, and 29) and total angular range (±14°, ±17.5°, ±21°, and ±24.5° ). For all acquisition sets, the zero-degree projection was used as the 2D image that was close to that of standard conventional mammography (CM). Exposures used were 50, 100, 150, and 200 mR for the zero-degree projection, and the remaining dose was distributed over the remaining projection angles. To quantitatively evaluate image quality, we computed the CNR (contrast-to-noise ratio) and the ASF (artifact spread function) for the same radiation dose. The results indicate that, for microcalcifications, acquisition sets with approximately 4 times higher exposure on the zero-degree projection than the average exposure for the remaining projection angles yielded higher CNR values and were 3% higher than the uniform distribution. However, very high dose concentrations toward the zero-degree projection may reduce the quality of the reconstructed images due to increasing noise in the peripheral views. The zero-degree projection of the non-uniform dose distribution offers a 2D image similar to that of standard CM, but with a significantly lower radiation dose. Therefore, we need to evaluate the diagnostic potential of extra 2D projection image when diagnose breast cancer by using 3D images with non-uniform angular dose distributions.