title: Evaluating noise reduction techniques while considering anatomical noise in dual-energy contrast-enhanced mammography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The authors describe modifications to previously developed cascaded systems analysis to include the anatomical noise in evaluation of dual-energy noise reduction techniques. Previous models have ignored the anatomical noise in theoretical analysis of noise reduction techniques. The inclusion of anatomical noise leads to more accurate estimation of potential noise reduction improvements and optimization.
  
  
  METHODS
  The model is applied to dual-energy contrast-enhanced mammography. The effect of linear noise reduction filters on the anatomical noise is taken into account using cascaded systems analysis. The noise model is included in the ideal observer detectability for performance evaluation of the noise reduction techniques.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Dual-energy image noise with and without including the effect of anatomical noise in noise reduction technique analysis is reported. The theoretical model is compared with clinical images from a previous dual-energy contrast enhanced mammography clinical study and good agreement is observed. The results suggest that the inclusion of anatomical noise in the evaluation and comparison of noise reduction techniques is highly warranted for more accurate analysis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This work establishes a useful extension to dual-energy cascaded systems analysis for maximizing image quality using noise reduction techniques. The extension includes the effect of linear image filtering, such as that used for noise reduction, on anatomical noise. The results suggest that the inclusion of anatomical noise in the evaluation of noise reduction techniques can lead to more accurate optimization, noise, and performance estimations.
authors: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada. nallec@uwaterloo.ca
authors: Nicholas
authors: N
authors: Allec
authors: Shiva
authors: S
authors: Abbaszadeh
authors: Chris C
authors: CC
authors: Scott
authors: Karim S
authors: KS
authors: Karim
authors: John M
authors: JM
authors: Lewin
mesh_terms: D003287:Contrast Media; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography / Q000379:methods*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media