Bone mineral imaging using a digital magnification mammography system

The measurement of bone mineral content is important for diagnosis of demineralization diseases such as osteoporosis. A reliable method of obtaining bone mineral images using a digital magnification mammography system has been developed. The full-field digital phase contrast mammography (PCM) system, which has a molybdenum target of 0.1mm focal spot size, was used with 1.75 x magnification. We have performed several phantom experiments using aluminum step wedges (0.2 mm - 6.0 mm in thickness) and a bone mineral standard phantom composed of calcium carbonate and polyurethane (CaCO 3 concentration: 26.7 - 939.0 mg/cm 3 ) within a water or Lucite phantom. X-ray spectra on the exposure field are measured using a CdTe detector for evaluation of heel effect. From the equations of x-ray attenuation and the thickness of the subjects, quantitative images of both components were obtained. The quantitative images of the two components were obtained for different tube voltages of 24 kV to 39 kV. The relative accuracy was less than 2.5% for the entire aluminum thickness of 0.5 to 6.0 mm at 5 cm water thickness. Accuracy of bone mineral thickness was within 3.5% for 5cm water phantom. The magnified quantitative images of a hand phantom significantly increased the visibility of fine structures of bones. The digital magnification mammography system is useful not only for measurement of bone mineral content, but also high-resolution quantitative imaging of trabecular structure.