Data from: Scatter correction for contrast-enhanced digital breast tomosynthesis with a dual-layer detector

Purpose: Contrast-enhanced digital breast tomosynthesis (CEDBT) highlights
breast tumors with neo-angiogenesis. A recently proposed CEDBT system with
a dual-layer (DL) flat-panel-detector enables simultaneous acquisition of
high-energy (HE) and low-energy (LE) projection images with a single
exposure, which reduces acquisition time and eliminates motion artifacts.
However, x-ray scatter degrades image quality and lesion detectability. In
this work, we propose a practical method for accurate and robust scatter
correction (SC) for DL-CEDBT. Approach: The proposed hybrid SC method
combines the advantages of a two-kernel iterative convolution method and
an empirical interpolation strategy, which accounts for the reduced
scatter from the peripheral breast region due to thickness roll-off and
the scatter contribution from the region outside the breast. Scatter point
spread functions were generated using Monte Carlo simulations with
different breast glandular fractions, compressed thicknesses, and
projection angles. Projection images and ground truth scatter maps of
anthropomorphic digital breast phantoms were simulated to evaluate the
performance of the proposed SC method and three other kernel- and
interpolation-based methods. The mean absolute relative error (MARE)
between scatter estimates and ground truth was used as the metric for SC
accuracy. Results: DL-CEDBT shows scatter characteristics different from
dual-shot (DS), primarily due to the two energy peaks of the incident
spectrum and the structure of the DL detector. Compared to the other
methods investigated, the proposed hybrid SC method showed superior
accuracy and robustness, with MARE of approximately 3.1% for all LE and HE
projection images of different phantoms in both CC and MLO views. After
SC, cupping artifacts in the dual-energy image were removed, and the
signal difference-to-noise ratio was improved by 82.0% for 8 mm iodine
objects. Conclusions: A practical SC method was developed, which provided
accurate and robust scatter estimates to improve image quality and lesion
detectability for DL-CEDBT.