Varying the Color of Mammography Display Improves the Detectability of Microcalcifications

Author Info

Akio Ogura Fumie Maeda Haruyuki Watanabe Norio Hayashi Toru Negishi

Corresponding Author

Akio Ogura
Graduate School, Gunma Prefectural College of Health Sciences

A B S T R A C T

Purpose: This study assessed whether varying the color of the display improves the detectability of microcalcifications on mammography. Materials and Methods: The American College of Radiology (ACR) 156 mammographic phantom was imaged under three different conditions. Ten observers evaluated the depiction of 30 phantom microcalcifications presented in six color-scales: red, green, yellow, blue, and cyan. Differences in the detectability of macrocalcifications and eye and psychological fatigue among the different color scales were assessed. Results: Yellow-scale images improved the detectability of microcalcifications to a significantly greater extent than did the other colors: relative to blue and red, P < 0.01; relative to gray, green, and cyan, P < 0.05. The cyan display induced the least eye fatigue. While no difference in eye fatigue induced by the yellow and gray displays was found, displays of these colors were associated with significantly less eye fatigue than the green-scale (P < 0.01), red-scale, and blue-scale displays (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The detectability of microcalcifications on mammography can be improved by changing the color scale in which mammograms are visualized from gray to yellow.

Article Info

Article Type

Original Article

Publication history

Received: Thu 07, Nov 2019
Accepted: Tue 26, Nov 2019
Published: Mon 23, Dec 2019

Copyright

© 2023 Akio Ogura. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.RDI.2019.04.04