Biomedical Imaging & Sensing

Center of Biomedical Engineering, AAIT

Addis Ababa University, Exercise 2

1. Adjacent regions of a radiograph have optical densities of 1.0 and 1.5. What is the
difference in the transmission of light through the two regions?
2. A Hurter and Driffield curve (or characteristic curve) is a plot of a film’s optical
density (OD) as a function of the logarithm of exposure. Draw a sketch of a
typical characteristic curve and label the important regions. What does the
horizontal (lateral) shift of such a characteristic curve indicate? What is the effect
if two H&D curves have different slopes?

3. (a) Why is X-ray mammography useful for diagnosis of breast cancer?

(b) Please explain the value of firm compression of the female breast in X-ray
mammography (with reference to image quality and radiation dose).
(c) Why is X-ray mammography sensitive to calcifications?

4. (a) Describe the principles of Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA).

(b) The raw image data may be processed logarithmically before subtraction.
Show that the subtracted signal Is = ln(I0)-ln(Ii) is linear with vessels thickness
dvessel as long as the contrast agent concentration (i.e μvessel ) is constant over the

region of interest in the vessel: Is=μvessel dvessel . (Hint: I e-μd)

5. (a) Which contrast agents are typically used in X-ray diagnostics?

(b) What is the difference between negative and positive contrast agents?

(c) Which type of contrast agent is used in Digital Subtraction Angiography?

6. Reading: Mammography Instrumentation