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Updated: Aug 12, 2026

Construction of a Preclinical Multimodality Phantom Using Tissue-mimicking Materials for Quality Assurance in Tumor Size Measurement
Published on: July 29, 2013
Monte Carlo simulation of a mammographic test phantom
R A Hunt1, D R Dance, M Pachoud
1Department of Physics, The Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London SW3 6JJ, UK.
Abstract:
A test phantom, including a wide range of mammographic tissue equivalent materials and test details, was imaged on a digital mammographic system. In order to quantify the effect of scatter on the contrast obtained for the test details, calculations of the scatter-to-primary ratio (S/P) have been made using a Monte Carlo simulation of the digital mammographic imaging chain, grid and test phantom. The results show that the S/P values corresponding to the imaging conditions used were in the range 0.084-0.126. Calculated and measured pixel values in different regions of the image were compared as a validation of the model and showed excellent agreement. The results indicate the potential of Monte Carlo methods in the image quality-patient dose process optimisation, especially in the assessment of imaging conditions not available on standard mammographic units.

