A phantom for the measurement of contrast detail performance in film-screen mammography.

A National Breast Cancer Screening Programme, based on X-ray mammography, has been introduced in the UK. The success of this screening programme is dependent on the production of high quality radiographs. There are various methods of assessing imaging performance in mammography, but contrast detail detectability measurements have an advantage in that the observation of radiographs is taken into consideration. The design and construction of a contrast detail phantom for the assessment of image quality in mammography is described. This phantom can be used to assess the imaging performance of mammographic film-screen combinations. The results of some measurements to verify the accuracy of the contrast predictions are presented together with some initial results of an investigation into the contrast detail performance of film-screen combinations used in mammography.