Challenges in mammography: part 1, artifacts in digital mammography.

OBJECTIVE: Early detection of breast cancer is directly related to the radiologist's ability to detect abnormalities visible only on mammograms. Artifacts on mammograms reduce image quality and may present clinical and technical difficulties for the radiologist, mammography technologist, medical physicist, and equipment service personnel. CONCLUSION: In this article, we will illustrate the appearance of artifacts in full field digital mammography, review the causes of these artifacts, and discuss methods to eliminate artifacts in digital mammography.