Lesion Ground Truth Estimation for a Physical Breast Phantom

The extraction of microstructures (like microcalcifications or masses) from a DBT phantom can be used for image quality assessment. A complete specification includes exact positions and dimensions of the microstructures, which is not always available. We propose a technique to estimate the required ground truth data from a set of multiple acquisitions. A 3D registration algorithm for DBT data is used to identify different breast phantom components and to perfectly align microstructures within the phantom. The registered data, showing variations of the same ground truth structures, is then combined to an estimate of the microstructures. This approach could be shown to improve the registration result itself, and to enable the determination of the actual parameters of the microstructures.