Title
Scale-space signatures for the detection of clustered microcalcifications in digital mammograms
Abstract
A method is described for the automated detection of microcalcifications in digitized mammograms. The method is based on the Laplacian scale-space representation of the mammogram only. First, possible locations of microcalcifications are identified as local maxima in the filtered image on a range of scales. For each finding, the size and local contrast is estimated, based on the Laplacian response denoted as the scale-space signature. A finding is marked as a microcalcification if the estimated contrast is larger than a predefined threshold which depends on the size of the finding. It is shown that the signature has a characteristic peak, revealing the corresponding image features. This peak can be robustly determined. The basic method is significantly improved by consideration of the statistical variation of the estimated contrast, which is the result of the complex noise characteristic of the mammograms. The method is evaluated with the Nijmegen database and compared to other methods using these mammograms. Results are presented as the free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROG) performance. At a rate of one false positive cluster per image the method reaches a sensitivity of 0.84, which is comparable to the best results achieved so far.
Year
DOI
Venue
1999
10.1109/42.802755
Medical Imaging, IEEE Transactions
Keywords
Field
DocType
cancer,mammography,medical image processing,Laplacian response,Nijmegen database,breast cancer detection,characteristic peak,clustered microcalcifications detection,complex noise characteristic,corresponding image features,estimated contrast,false positive cluster,free-response receiver operating characteristic,medical diagnostic imaging,method sensitivity,statistical variation
Computer vision,Mammography,Receiver operating characteristic,Microcalcification,Feature (computer vision),Scale space,Maxima and minima,Artificial intelligence,Mathematics,Digital radiography,Laplace operator
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
18
9
0278-0062
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
51
5.84
10
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Netsch, T.1515.84
Peitgen, H.-O.2696.81