A multi-slice model observer for medical image quality assessment

Model observers (MOs) have been developed for the medical image quality assessment. Nowadays, numerous modern medical instruments are capable of producing 3D images, while few researchers have conducted MO studies on 3D data. In this paper, we propose a multi-slice MO when considering a relatively more realistic diagnostic task: the detection-localization of simulated multiple-sclerosis (MS) lesions on 3D magnetic resonance (MR) images. The jackknife free-response receiver operating characteristic (JAFROC) method was used to quantitatively analyse its performances and compare them with those of human observers. Our preliminary results showed that the proposed framework has the potential to approach human detection-localization task performance.