A consideration of the signal-to-noise ratio in phase contrast mammography

Recently, with developments in medicine, digital systems such as computed radiography (CR) and flat-panel detector (FPD) systems are being employed for mammography instead of analog systems such as the screen-film system. Phase-contrast mammography (PCM) is a commercially available digital system that uses images with a magnification of 1.75x. To study the effect of the air gap in PCM, we measured the scatter fraction ratio (SFR) and calculated the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in PCM, and compared it to that in conventional mammography (CM). Then, to extend the SNR to the spatial frequency domain, we calculated the noise equivalent quanta (NEQ) and detective quantum efficiency (DQE) used by the modulation transfer function (MTF), noise power spectrum of the pixel value (NPS Delta PV), gradient of the digital characteristic curve, and number of X-ray photons. The obtained results indicated that the SFR of the PCM was as low as that of the CM with a grid. When the exposure dose was constant, the SNR of the PCM was the highest in all systems. Moreover, the NEQ and DQE for the PCM were higher than those for the CM (G-) in the spatial frequency domain over 2.5 cycles/mm. These results showed that the number of scattered X-rays was reduced sufficiently by the air gap in the PCM and the NEQ and DQE for PCM were influenced by the presampled MTF in the high-spatial-frequency domain.