Atypical architectural distortion detection in digital breast tomosynthesis: a computer-aided detection model with adaptive receptive field

Objective. In digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), architectural distortion (AD) is a breast lesion that is difficult to detect. Compared with typical ADs, which have radial patterns, identifying a typical ADs is more difficult. Most existing computer-aided detection (CADe) models focus on the detection of typical ADs. This study focuses on atypical ADs and develops a deep learning-based CADe model with an adaptive receptive field in DBT. Approach. Our proposed model uses a Gabor filter and convergence measure to depict the distribution of fibroglandular tissues in DBT slices. Subsequently, two-dimensional (2D) detection is implemented using a deformable-convolution-based deep learning framework, in which an adaptive receptive field is introduced to extract global features in slices. Finally, 2D candidates are aggregated to form the three-dimensional AD detection results. The model is trained on 99 positive cases with ADs and evaluated on 120 AD-positive cases and 100 AD-negative cases. Main results. A convergence-measure-based model and deep-learning model without an adaptive receptive field are reproduced as controls. Their mean true positive fractions (MTPF) ranging from 0.05 to 4 false positives per volume are 0.3846 +/- 0.0352 and 0.6501 +/- 0.0380, respectively. Our proposed model achieves an MTPF of 0.7148 +/- 0.0322, which is a significant improvement (p < 0.05) compared with the other two methods. In particular, our model detects more atypical ADs, primarily contributing to the performance improvement. Significance. The adaptive receptive field helps the model improve the atypical AD detection performance. It can help radiologists identify more ADs in breast cancer screening.

Automated summary

This study develops a deep learning-based CADe model with an adaptive receptive field to detect atypical architectural distortions (ADs) in digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT). The results show a significant improvement in AD detection performance, especially for atypical ADs.