Image quality evaluation of breast tomosynthesis

Digital breast tomosynthesis provides significant opportunities in both diagnostic and cancer screening. It gives high quality image and overcomes some inherent limitations of the traditional 2D digital mammography due to tissues overlapping which makes difficult to detect cancers. Unfortunately, the quality of tomographic images is directly related to the radiation dose on the patient and it is significantly affected by the parameters set by the technician during the mammographic exam. Normally, breast tomosynthesis provides a little increase in radiation dose with respect 2D mammography. The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between the radiation dose on the patient and the resulting image quality, by comparing the tomosynthesis performance with the 2D digital mammography.