title: Fourier domain image fusion for differential X-ray phase-contrast breast imaging.
abstract: X-Ray Phase-Contrast (XPC) imaging is a novel technology with a great potential for applications in clinical practice, with breast imaging being of special interest. This work introduces an intuitive methodology to combine and visualize relevant diagnostic features, present in the X-ray attenuation, phase shift and scattering information retrieved in XPC imaging, using a Fourier domain fusion algorithm. The method allows to present complementary information from the three acquired signals in one single image, minimizing the noise component and maintaining visual similarity to a conventional X-ray image, but with noticeable enhancement in diagnostic features, details and resolution. Radiologists experienced in mammography applied the image fusion method to XPC measurements of mastectomy samples and evaluated the feature content of each input and the fused image. This assessment validated that the combination of all the relevant diagnostic features, contained in the XPC images, was present in the fused image as well.
authors.affiliation: GE Global Research, Garching, Germany; Lehrstuhl für Informatikanwendungen in der Medizin & Augmented Reality, Institut für Informatik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany. Electronic address: eduardo.coello@tum.de.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Coello
authors.affiliation: GE Global Research, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Jonathan I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Sperl
authors.affiliation: GE Global Research, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bequé
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Informatikanwendungen in der Medizin & Augmented Reality, Institut für Informatik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Benz
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department & Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Scherer
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department & Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Herzen
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical Radiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Hospital, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Anikó
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sztrókay-Gaul
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical Radiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Hospital, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hellerhoff
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department & Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pfeiffer
authors.affiliation: GE Global Research, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cozzini
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical Radiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Hospital, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grandl
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008327:Mammography / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014965:X-Rays
keywords: Image analysis; Image enhancement; Medical imaging; X-ray phase-contrast mammography