Dose reduction in Full-Field Digital Electromagnetic Radiation Mammography using Noise reduction Method: Phantom Study

The purpose of study is to investigate optimal exposure parameters for full-field digital electromagnetic radiation mammography (FFDM) and to reduce the average glandular dose (AGD) by applying a noise reduction algorithm. To find an optimal exposure parameter, filtration-target material combinations (Mo/Rh, Mo/Mo, W/ Rh) were applied by each tube voltages (23-35 kVp). AGD, Noise, Figure-of-merit (FOM) were measured. The experimental results, using 29 kVp of W/Rh was found to be best in all cases before and after applying the denoising filter. With a denoising filter, noise decreased 76.44 % and SNR increased 76.18 %, which improved image quality. If a denoising method is suggested for images of 35 kVp of W/Rh (SNR: 3.58, AGD: 0.67 mGy) using the smallest AGD when using FFDM, better picture quality (SNR 9.73, ADG: 0.67 mGy) could be gotten than 23 kVp of Mo/Mo combination. From this study, it is possible to obtain good quality images with a lower dose than FFDM used in the clinic.