Evaluation of subject contrast and normalized average glandular dose by semi-analytical models

In this work, two semi-analytical models are described to evaluate the subject contrast of nodules and the normalized average glandular dose in mammography. Both models were used to study the influence of some parameters, such as breast characteristics (thickness and composition) and incident spectra (kVp and target–filter combination) on the subject contrast of a nodule and on the normalized average glandular dose. From the subject contrast results, detection limits of nodules were also determined. Our results are in good agreement with those reported by other authors, who had used Monte Carlo simulation, showing the robustness of our semi-analytical method.