Mammographic scanning equalization radiography

This paper reports on conventional x-ray mammography that suffers from poor visualization of low-contrast lesions and microcalcifications in regions where variations in breast thickness and parenchymal pattern result in suboptimal film exposure and contrast. MSER overcomes this limitation by equalizing the film exposure into the range of maximum film contrast, independent of variations in breast architecture. A prototype MSER system has been developed for imaging breast phantoms in which a Min-R cassette is exposed by scanning a small (4-cm2) beam of pulsed (40-Hz) x-rays (30 KVp) over the breast phantom in a raster fashion while measuring the transmission with a scanning detector. Feedback of the transmission information modulates the width of each x-ray pulse to equalize the film exposure over the entire image