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Simulation‐based image quality metrics are adapted and investigated for characterizing the parameter dependences of linear iterative image reconstruction for DBT.

Three metrics based on a 2D DBT simulation are investigated: (1) a root‐mean‐square‐error (RMSE) between the test phantom and reconstructed image, (2) a gradient RMSE where the comparison is made after taking a spatial gradient of both image and phantom, and (3) a region‐of‐interest (ROI) Hotelling observer (HO) for signal‐known‐exactly/background‐known‐exactly (SKE/BKE) and signal‐known‐exactly/background‐known‐statistically (SKE/BKS) detection tasks. Two simulation studies are performed using the aforementioned metrics, varying voxel aspect ratio, and regularization strength for two types of Tikhonov‐regularized least‐squares optimization. The RMSE metrics are applied to a 2D test phantom with resolution …