CDMAM Analysis

"Automated determination of threshold contrast"

The data used in the analysis
 

European Guidelines provide quality control procedures and minimum standards of performance for digital mammography. The image quality standard is based on contrast-detail measurements using the CDMAM phantom (version 3.4, UMC St. Radboud, Nijmegen University, Netherlands). The minimum standards were chosen to ensure that digital systems are as good or better than current film screen systems. These standards have also been incorporated into guidance to the NHS Breast screening programme. Such contrast detail measurements rely on a large number of observer readings and suffer from significant inter-observer error, which undermines the reliability and confidence in the measurements. The use of human observers is also very time consuming. A possible solution to these problems is the use of the software which automatically reads CDMAM images.

The resulting graph of the curve fits and the contrast detail plot

The basic software tool described by Karssemeijer and Thijssen for automatically identifying discs on digital images of the CDMAM is called CDCOM and is available for download at the EUREF website . Also provided at this website is a manual explaining how to use the software. The CDCOM program attempts to correctly locate the position of the gold discs on a single DICOM image. However the program does not combine the data from more than one image or determine the threshold contrasts.

CDMAM Analysis V2.3
NCCPM have created software to run CDCOM, analyze the output, and generate predicted human threshold gold thicknesses. Earlier versions of our software used Excel and Matlab. The latest version of our software is written in Java, and is available to NHS users. Users outside the NHS will need to complete to download form and await contact. Charges may apply for non-NHS use.

More information can be found on the Introduction to CDMAM Analysis v2.3 flyer

The End user licence agreement can be viewed here. This licence needs to be agreed to before you download the software.

Download CDMAM Analysis V2.3

The CDMAM Analysis software should be used with Version 1.6 of CDCOM or later. This version of CDCOM copes better with variations in phantom construction. Thus for some phantoms there will be significant change when changing from earlier versions of CDCOM. There may be improved image quality results, better consistency between phantoms and a more accurate measurement.