Examining the influence of digital phantom models in virtual imaging trials for tomographic breast imaging

Purpose: Digital phantoms are one of the key components of virtual imaging trials (VITs) that aim to assess and optimize new medical imaging systems and algorithms. However, these phantoms vary in their voxel resolution, appearance, and structural details. We investigate whether and how variations between digital phantoms influence system optimization with digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) as a chosen modality.

Methods: We selected widely used and open-access digital breast phantoms created with different methods and generated an ensemble of DBT images to test acquisition strategies. Human observer performance was evaluated using localization receiver operating characteristic (LROC) studies for each phantom type. Noise power spectrum and gaze metrics were also employed to compare phantoms and generated images.

Results: Our LROC results show that the arc samplings for peak performance were $\sim 2.5\mathrm{deg}$ and 6 deg in Bakic and XCAT breast phantoms, respectively, for the 3-mm lesion detection task and indicate that system optimization outcomes from VITs can vary with phantom types and structural frequency components. In addition, a significant correlation ( $p<0.01$ ) between gaze metrics and diagnostic performance suggests that gaze analysis can be used to understand and evaluate task difficulty in VITs.

Conclusion: Our results point to the critical need to evaluate realism in digital phantoms and ensure sufficient structural variations at spatial frequencies relevant to the intended task. Standardizing phantom generation and validation tools may help reduce discrepancies among independently conducted VITs for system or algorithmic optimizations.