Patient Specific Dose Calculation Using Volumetric Breast Density for Mammography and Tomosynthesis

Minimising the mean glandular dose (MGD) received by the patient whilst maximising image contrast during mammographic imaging is of paramount importance due to the widespread use of the modality for screening, where subjects are for the most part healthy. The advent of digital mammography brought about a general reduction in MGD, however the introduction of tomosynthesis, particularly when used in combination with conventional projection mammography has the potential for unwanted and often unnecessary MGD increases. We describe a method to calculate the patient-specific MGD using a representation of the patient’s volumetric breast density to derive the breast glandularity. This personalises the MGD to the individual woman, rather than assuming a constant value, or one that depends solely on compressed breast thickness. The calculated patient specific MGDs are compared to those reported by the manufacturer for a database of 2D mammograms. Though agreement is generally good for dense breasts, we have found that the MGD is underestimated in fatty breasts. A separate database of 2D mammogram and 3D tomosynthesis acquisitions acquired in “combo” is also analysed. In general, the MGDs are approximately equal for dense (VDG 3 and 4) breasts, but fatty (VDG 1 and 2) breasts exhibited significant differences with tomosynthesis MGDs being higher than mammogram MGDs for these cases.