Digital mammography scanner: performance characteristics and preliminary clinical results

Presents an introductory system design analysis for a novel digital mammography system. The design approach taken is based on the scanning detector composed of a linear assembly of bonded modules. Each module is built by attaching to a fiber optics taper a charge coupled device (CCD) optical sensor operating in the time-delay-and-integrate (TDI) mode dictated by the constant velocity scanning of the detector assembly. The X-ray entrance surface of the taper is covered with a scintillator. Results obtained with a detector 18 cm long and 1 cm wide, with limiting resolution of approximately 9 cy/mm are presented to demonstrate the viability of this design approach for digital mammography