Niobium/molybdenum K-edge filtration in mammography: contrast and dose evaluation

The use of a dual K-edge filter (niobium-molybdenum) with a Mo anode x-ray tube for application to mammography is investigated. The incident and transmitted energy spectral distributions are compared with those provided by a molybdenum anode molybdenum filter tube (standard source). The imaging characteristics in terms of contrast and mean glandular dose have been evaluated for various phantom thicknesses. The niobium filtration removes the molybdenum K beta line almost completely from the beam spectrum whereas a Mo filtration is needed to avoid the increases both in the low-energy component of the incident beam and in the higher energy component of the transmitted one. The contrast is improved with respect to the standard source and the mean glandular dose is only slightly increased for moderate transmission phantoms (thickness 2-4 cm).