Digital mammography

The authors investigated the relationship between exposure conditions and the detectability of simulated small masses and calcifications in digital mammography with photostimulable phosphors. The exposure to the imaging plate was varied from 100% to 12.5% (100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%) of the exposure of the conventional screen-film system. Observer performance tests were carried out by means of receiver operating characteristic analysis. The results indicated that digital mammography provided better detectability than a conventional screen-film system under the same exposure conditions. With image processing, the detectability of simulated masses and calcifications improved further