Simulation of Nodule-like Pathology in Radiographs of the Lumbar Spine
Clemens Herrmann, Anders Tingberg, Jack Besjakov, Karsten Rodenacker · Radiation Protection Dosimetry · 2000
For image evaluation in clinical routine, techniques like contrast-detail diagrams are commonly used. However, it is difficult to make an interpolation from these test results to real patient images. This problem can be solved by observer studies on the detection of certain pathology, which is often simulated by fixing external objects to healthy volunteers. This approach is relatively simple and rather successful in chest imaging. For lumbar spine images, however, the situation is different because nodule-like tumours in the spine can present themselves being osteosclerotic (producing bony material) or being osteolytic (destroying bone). Such a behaviour is extremely hard to simulate by fixing an external object to the patient. Therefore, this paper presents a computer model for the simulation of nodules in lumbar spine images, which has been applied to digital radiographic data within a study to investigate the influence of MTF and noise power spectra on the diagnostic quality.