Region-growing technique adapted to precise microcalcification characterization in mammography
Michel Darboux, Jean‐Marc Dinten, E. Nicolas · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1996
The early detection of breast cancer is essential for increasing the survival rate of the disease. Today, mammography is the only breast screening technique capable of detecting breast cancer at a very early stage. The presence of a breast tumor is indicated by some features on the mammogram. One sign of malignancy is the presence of clusters of fine, granular microcalcifications. We present here a three-step method for detecting and characterizing these microcalcifications. We begin with the detection of potential candidates. The aim of this first step is to detect all the pixels that could be a microcalcification. Then we focus on our specific region growing technique which provides an accurate extraction of the shape of the region corresponding to each detected growing technique which provides an accurate extraction of the shape of the region corresponding to each detected seed. This second step is essential because microcalcifications shape is a very important feature for the diagnosis. It is then possible to determine precise parameters to characterize these microcalcifications. This three-step method has been evaluated on a set of images form the mammographic image analysis society database.