Phantom study of radiotracer concentration quantification in breast scintigraphy

We are developing a breast imaging system that combines digital x-ray mammography and gamma emission scintigraphy in an integrated unit. Here we present results of a phantom study designed to investigate the use of lesion position information from the x-ray images to improve quantification of lesion and background radioactivity concentrations. The preliminary results indicate that the effects of gamma ray attenuation, partial volume averaging, and scatter on lesion image contrast can be modeled