The impact of simulated motion blur on lesion detection performance in full-field digital mammography

Objective:Motion blur is a known phenomenon in full-field digital mammography, but the impact on lesion detection is unknown. This is the first study to investigate detection performance with varying magnitudes of simulated motion blur.Methods:7 observers (15 ± 5 years' reporting experience) evaluated 248 cases (62 containing malignant masses, 62 containing malignant microcalcifications and 124 normal cases) for 3 conditions: no blurring (0 mm) and 2 magnitudes of simulated blurring (0.7 and 1.5 mm). Abnormal cases were biopsy proven. Mathematical simulation was used to provide a pixel shift in order to simulate motion blur. A free-response observer study was conducted to compare lesion detection performance for the three conditions. The equally weighted jackknife alternative free-response receiver operating characteristic was used as the figure of merit. Test alpha was set at 0.05 to control probability of Type I error.Results:The equally weighted jackknife alternative free-response receiver operating ch...