Efficiency of the Human Observer Compared to an Ideal Observer Based on a Generalized NEQ Which Incorporates Scatter and Geometric Unsharpness: Evaluation with a 2AFC Experiment.

Under certain assumptions the detectability of the ideal observer can be defined as the integral of the system Noise Equivalent Quanta multiplied by the squared object spatial frequency distribution. Using the detector Noise-Equivalent-Quanta (NEQ(D)) for the calculation of detectability inadequately describes the performance of an x-ray imaging system because it does not take into account the effects of patient scatter and geometric unsharpness. As a result, the ideal detectability index is overestimated, and hence the efficiency of the human observer in detecting objects is underestimated. We define a Generalized-NEQ (GNEQ) for an x-ray system referenced at the object plane that incorporates the scatter fraction, the spatial distributions of scatter and focal spot, the detector MTF(D), and the detector Normalized-Noise-Power-Spectrum (NNPS(D)). This GNEQ was used in the definition of the ideal detectability for the evaluation of the human observer efficiency during a two Alternative Forced Choice (2-AFC) experiment, and was compared with the case where only the NEQ(D) was used in the detectability calculations. The 2-AFC experiment involved the detection of images of polyethylene tubes (diameters between 100-300 μm) filled with iodine contrast (concentrations between 0-120 mg/cm(3)) placed onto a uniform head equivalent phantom placed near the surface of a microangiographic detector (43 μm pixel size). The resulting efficiency of the human observer without regarding the effects of scatter and geometric unsharpness was 30%. When these effects were considered the efficiency was increased to 70%. The ideal observer with the GNEQ can be a simple optimization method of a complete imaging system.