Evaluation of microcalcification contrast in clinical images for digital mammography and synthetic mammography

Highlights: • Synthetic mammography is superior to digital mammography in microcalcs contrast. • The contrast of microcalcs on synthetic images is on average 48 % higher. • Contrast enhancement is achieved regardless the size and breast glandularity. • Structure noise suppression increases microcalcs' contrast on synthetic images. • A quantitative evaluation can better address the role of synthetic mammography. The aim of this work was to compare, in a clinical study, digital mammography and synthetic mammography imaging by evaluating the contrast in microcalcifications of different sizes.