This article covers the following topics:

• Phantom Positioning
• General Uploading Instructions
• Report Overview
  • Summary
  • DICOM Information
  • Physics Information
  • Warnings

Phantom Positioning

Assemble the Tomophan® phantom in the desired standard configuration, as seen in the Phantom Configurations section of the manual or in the diagram below. In the standard central configuration, the test components are located in the central plane of the phantom. Place the phantom with the Chest Wall Plate firmly positioned against the breast table. Use the breast compression paddle to hold the phantom in position. Please refer to the Phantom positioning section in the Tomophan Manual for more information.

Below, is an annotated image that is included in the Summary and Alignment sections of the Tomophan report. Right and Left Side labels will enable this diagram to be used to describe positions accurately.

Figure 1.1: Standard central phantom configuration. Right and Left Side labels are used to indicate which side of the phantom that the Smári analysis is referring to when it tags test objects as ‘upper’ or ‘lower’ and ‘lateral’ or ‘medial’.

General Uploading Instructions

Please note that we require the upload of full phantom scans. Depending on the machine used, this may be a single DICOM file with the set of images or multiple images. As you upload data from the various machines we may find some instances where the processing doesn't complete as expected as these Tomosynthesis machines are still new and our database is limited. We will look into each of these cases to determine if we can expand the algorithms to support the data.

Report Overview

Summary

The summary section of the reports excerpts selected information from the more detailed sections of the report to provide the user with a brief overview of the phantom results. It is important to note whether the images have been flipped left to right or up and down, as indicated in the Summary Information section.

DICOM Information

The DICOM information section extracts information from the DICOM tags in the submitted image DICOM header. If the tag is not in the file or empty the tag value will be shown as N/A.

The following information is extracted if available from the DICOM headers:

Table 1.1: DICOM Tags

Physics Information

For physics details on each report section, please see the articles below:

• Contrast and Noise
• Spatial Linearity (Pixel Size)
• Global Uniformity
• Regional Uniformity
• Modulation Transfer Function (MTF)
• Slice Sensitivity Profile (SSP)
• Z-axis geometry
• Missed chest wall
• Alignment

Warnings

The warnings section displays messages on conditions in the images that may have an effect on the ability of the analysis to conduct certain measurements.