Abstract
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of simulated dose reduction using CDMAM and mastectomy images acquired on two digital mammography systems. High dose images have been artificially degraded to reduced dose levels by systematically adding filtered noise. Automated scoring has been carried out on the degraded CDMAM images and on experimental CDMAM images, taken at the same corresponding reduced doses. Contrast-detail curves were derived for both, at all doses, and compared. Relative difference in the contrast-detail curves was approximately 5% overall for all four doses. For the mastectomy images noise power spectra were obtained and the ratio of experimental to synthetic low dose NPS profiles averaged for all doses at 1.04. The largest differences in the NPS profiles were found at the high spatial frequencies, corresponding with the differences in the small discs in the contrast-detail curves. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.