Observers screening mammograms for breast cancer, are estimated to have a sensitivity of about 75 percent and a specificity of about 95 percent. A 25 percent miss rate is a clinically significant level of error that deserves study to find the causes and to develop methods for reducing error. While studying observers searching chest images for lung nodules, we observed that unreported nodules received prolonged eye-fixation dwell time. This phenomenon of perceptual attraction to occult lesions has been used to provide visual cues for revising decision making. Eye-position recording during the initial viewing is used to identify areas that receive prolonged visual dwell time. These areas are immediately circled on the image and the observer is instructed to re-examine the cued areas and revise his or her initial decision. A controlled study using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) methods have shown an absolute improvement in detection performance. We propose to verify the psychophysical relationship between visual dwell time and the detection of clinically-occult breast tumors as measured by decision outcome, and to extend the basic observations made using pulmonary nodules to breast lesions. The value of perceptual cues for improving the detection of cancer in screening mammograns will be evaluated. The main purpose of this research is to determine how to effectively use programmable soft copy displays in conjunction with perceptual feedback to decrease observer error rates during the screening of mammograms for cancer.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01CA032870-13
Application #
2088420
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG7-SSS-X (18))
Project Start
1980-08-01
Project End
1997-04-30
Budget Start
1995-05-01
Budget End
1996-04-30
Support Year
13
Fiscal Year
1995
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Radiation-Diagnostic/Oncology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
Nodine, C F; Kundel, H L; Lauver, S C et al. (1996) Nature of expertise in searching mammograms for breast masses. Acad Radiol 3:1000-6
Samuel, S; Kundel, H L; Nodine, C F et al. (1995) Mechanism of satisfaction of search: eye position recordings in the reading of chest radiographs. Radiology 194:895-902
Hu, C H; Kundel, H L; Nodine, C F et al. (1994) Searching for bone fractures: a comparison with pulmonary nodule search. Acad Radiol 1:25-32
Krupinski, E A; Nodine, C F; Kundel, H L (1993) A perceptually based method for enhancing pulmonary nodule recognition. Invest Radiol 28:289-94
Krupinski, E A; Nodine, C F; Kundel, H L (1993) Perceptual enhancement of tumor targets in chest X-ray images. Percept Psychophys 53:519-26
Nodine, C F; Krupinski, E A; Kundel, H L et al. (1992) Satisfaction of search (SOS) Invest Radiol 27:571-3
Kundel, H L; Nodine, C F; Toto, L (1991) Searching for lung nodules. The guidance of visual scanning. Invest Radiol 26:777-81
Kundel, H L; Nodine, C F; Krupinski, E A (1990) Computer-displayed eye position as a visual aid to pulmonary nodule interpretation. Invest Radiol 25:890-6
Kundel, H L; Nodine, C F; Krupinski, E A (1989) Searching for lung nodules. Visual dwell indicates locations of false-positive and false-negative decisions. Invest Radiol 24:472-8
Kundel, H L; Nodine, C F; Thickman, D et al. (1987) Searching for lung nodules. A comparison of human performance with random and systematic scanning models. Invest Radiol 22:417-22

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