Pre-processing Algorithms on Digital Mammograms

Mammography is the best method for early mass detection. In order to limit the search for abnormalities by Computer Aided Diagnosis systems to the region of the breast without undue influence from the background of the mammogram, extraction of the breast contour and pectoral muscle is necessary. Breast contour helps to find the position of the nipple, which its position is important for mass detection in the next stages and presence of pectoral muscle in the mammogram could bias the detection procedures. So during analysis, the pectoral muscle should preferably be excluded from processing. In this paper we propose one low-pass mask for detecting breast contour and a new method for the identification of the pectoral muscle in most medio-lateral oblique mammograms based on Non-Linear Diffusion algorithm which is an edge preserving smoother. Evaluation of the breast contour and pectoral muscle detected in the mammograms were performed by the Hausdorff Distance Measure (HDM) and also the ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: MVA
• Authors: Hengameh Mirzaalian, Mohammad Reza Ahmadzadeh, Saeed Sadri, Mehdi Jafari
• Keywords: Breast Contour, Computer Vision, Mass Detection, MVA 2007, Pectoral Muscle