Estimating average glandular dose in routine mammography screening using neural network

Given the extensive use of common mammography tests for screening and diagnosis of breast cancer, there are concerns over the increased dose absorbed by the patient due to the sensitivity of the breast tissue. Thus, knowing the Mean Glandular Dose (MGD) before radiation to the patient through its estimation can be helpful. For this reason, the MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network model was trained with Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) backpropagation training algorithm and the Entrance Surface Air Kerma (ESAK) was estimated. After running the program, it was found that 35 neurons is the most optimal value, offering a regression coefficient of 95.7%, where the Mean Squared Error (MSE) for all data was 0.437 mGy, accounting for 4.8% of the range of output changes, representing a prediction with 95.2% accuracy in the present research. In comparison with the Monte-Carlo simulation method, it enjoys a desirable accuracy.