Flat-panel detector-based cone-beam volume CT breast imaging: preliminary phantom study

The clinical goal of breast imaging is to detect tumor masses when they are as small as possible, preferably less than 10 mm in diameter. Conventional film-screen mammography is the most effective tool for the early detection of breast cancer currently available. However, conventional mammography has relatively low sensitivity to detect small breast cancers (under several millimeters). Specificity and the positive predictive value of mammography remain limited owing to an overlap in the appearance of benign and malignant lesions, and surrounding structure. The limitations accompanying conventional mammography is to be addressed by incorporating a cone beam volume CT reconstruction technique with a recently developed flat panel detector. A computer simulation study has been performed to prove the feasibility of developing a flat panel detector-based cone beam volume CT breast imaging (FPD-CBVCTBI) technique. In this study, a preliminary phantom experiment is conducted to verify the findings in the computer simulation using a prototype flat panel detector-based cone beam volume CT scanner. The results indicate that the FPD-CBVCTBI technique effectively removes structure overlap and significantly improves the detectability of small breast tumors. This suggests that FPD-CBVCTBI is a potentially powerful breast-imaging tool.