Impact of total variation minimization in volume rendering visualization of breast tomosynthesis data

•Total Variation (TV) minimization algorithms are efficient in reducing noise while preserving edges.•Description of two 3D TV minimization algorithms applied to breast tomosynthesis data and analysis through volume rendering visualization (at 0º and 90º).•Volume rendering is a 3D visualization appr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computer methods and programs in biomedicine 2020-10, Vol.195, p.105534-105534, Article 105534
Main Authors: Mota, A.M., Clarkson, M.J., Almeida, P., Peralta, L., Matela, N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Breast - diagnostic imaging
Digital breast tomosynthesis
Mammography
Phantoms, Imaging
Total Variation minimization
Volume rendering
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Summary:•Total Variation (TV) minimization algorithms are efficient in reducing noise while preserving edges.•Description of two 3D TV minimization algorithms applied to breast tomosynthesis data and analysis through volume rendering visualization (at 0º and 90º).•Volume rendering is a 3D visualization approach which can display data from several angles, resulting in an immediately global inspection. Total Variation (TV) minimization algorithms have achieved great attention due to the virtue of decreasing noise while preserving edges. The purpose of this work is to implement and evaluate two TV minimization methods in 3D. Their performance is analyzed through 3D visualization of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) data with volume rendering. Both filters were studied with real phantom and one clinical DBT data. One algorithm was applied sequentially to all slices and the other was applied to the entire volume at once. The suitable Lagrange multiplier used in each filter equation was studied to reach the minimum 3D TV and the maximum contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). Imaging blur was measured at 0° and 90° using two disks with different diameters (0.5 mm and 5.0 mm) and equal thickness. The quality of unfiltered and filtered data was analyzed with volume rendering at 0° and 90°. For phantom data, with the sequential filter, a decrease of 25% in 3D TV value and an increase of 19% and 30% in CNR at 0° and 90°, respectively, were observed. When the filter is applied directly in 3D, TV value was reduced by 35% and an increase of 36% was achieved both for CNR at 0° and 90°. For the smaller disk, variations of 0% in width at half maximum (FWHM) at 0° and a decrease of about 2.5% for FWHM at 90° were observed for both filters. For the larger disk, there was a 2.5% increase in FWHM at 0° for both filters and a decrease of 6.28% and 1.69% in FWHM at 90° with the sequential filter and the 3D filter, respectively. When applied to clinical data, the performance of each filter was consistent with that obtained with the phantom. Data analysis confirmed the relevance of these methods in improving quality of DBT images. Additionally, this type of 3D visualization showed that it may play an important complementary role in DBT imaging. It allows to visualize all DBT data at once and to analyze properly filters applied to all the three dimensions. Concise Abstract Total Variation (TV) minimization algorithms are one compressed sensing technique that has achieved great attention due to th
ISSN:0169-2607
1872-7565
DOI:10.1016/j.cmpb.2020.105534