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Published in:
2014 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Towards a Quantitative Measure of Radiographic Masking by Dense Tissue in Mammography
Authors : James G. Mainprize, Xinying Wang, Mei Ge, Martin J. Yaffe
Published in: Breast Imaging
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
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The detection sensitivity of screening mammography is reduced for dense breasts where the appearance of fibroglandular tissue can mask suspicious lesions. A measure of the degree of masking expected for a mammogram could be useful for informing the decision to direct some women to supplemental imaging procedures not affected by density. Here, we present an adaptation of a model observer to estimate the detection task SNR,
d
local
, of a lesion embedded in various portions of the breast to indicate the level of detection difficulty. Rank correlation of mean mammogram
d
local
with density category is
ρ
=–0.58. Correlation of fractional area of mammograms with low
d
local
< 2 versus density category is
ρ
=0.61. This suggests that a metric based on
d
local
may be useful in quantifying masking effects of breast density.