A method to measure paddle and detector pressures and footprints in mammography

Purpose: Compression is necessary in mammography to improve image quality and reduce radiation burden. Maximizing the amount of breast in contact with the image receptor (IR) is important. To achieve this, for the craniocaudal projection, there is no consensus within the literature regarding how the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medical physics (Lancaster) Vol. 40; no. 4; pp. 041907 - n/a
Main Authors: Hogg, Peter, Szczepura, Katy, Darlington, Alison, Maxwell, Anthony
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States American Association of Physicists in Medicine 01.04.2013
Subjects:
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
biological tissues
BIOMEDICAL RADIOGRAPHY
breast compression
breast pressure balancing
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Coding, decoding or code conversion, in general
data compression
Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific applications
Electromagnetic radiation detectors
Equipment Design
Equipment Failure Analysis
Hardness Tests - instrumentation
High pressure
Image analysis
image coding
Image coding, e.g. from bit‐mapped to non bit‐mapped
Image data processing or generation, in general
Image Enhancement - instrumentation
IMAGE PROCESSING
Image quality
Image sensors
Infrared detectors
Infrared radiation
MAMMARY GLANDS
Mammography
Mammography - instrumentation
medical image processing
Medical image quality
Medical imaging
Numerical optimization
optimisation
Palpation - instrumentation
PHANTOMS
Pressure measurement
Radiation detectors
Reproducibility of Results
SENSITIVITY
Sensitivity and Specificity
Transducers, Pressure
mammography
breast pressure balancing
breast compression
ISSN:0094-2405, 2473-4209, 2473-4209
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Purpose: Compression is necessary in mammography to improve image quality and reduce radiation burden. Maximizing the amount of breast in contact with the image receptor (IR) is important. To achieve this, for the craniocaudal projection, there is no consensus within the literature regarding how the IR should be positioned relative to the inframammary fold (IMF). No information exists within the literature to describe how pressure balancing between IR and paddle, and IR breast footprint, might be optimized. This paper describes a novel method for measuring the respective pressures applied to the breast from the IR and the paddle and a method to simultaneously measure the breast footprints on the IR and the paddle. Methods: Using a deformable breast phantom and electronic pressure-sensitive mat, area and pressure readings were gathered from two mammography machines and four paddles at 60, 80, and 100 N with the IR positioned at −2, −1, 0, +1, and +2 cm relative to the IMF (60 combinations in total). Results: Paddle and IR footprints were calculated along with a uniformity index (UI). For all four paddle/machine/pressure combinations the greatest IR footprint was achieved at IMF +2 cm. The UI indicates that the best pressure/footprint balance is achieved at IMF +1 cm. Conclusions: The authors’ method appears to be suited to measuring breast footprints and pressures on IR and paddle and a human female study is planned.
Bibliography:Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail
P.Hogg@salford.ac.uk
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ISSN:0094-2405
2473-4209
2473-4209
DOI:10.1118/1.4792720