Method and system for the detection of microcalcifications in digital mammograms
First Claim
1. A method of detecting microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:
- obtaining a digital mammogram;
extracting regions of interest from said digital mammogram suspected of containing a microcalcification;
converting said regions of interest into corresponding numerical data;
inputting said numerical data to a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect microcalcifications for processing of said numerical data by said neural network, said neural network outputting corresponding output images;
detecting a microcalcification in said digital mammogram using said output images.
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Abstract
A method and system for the detection of microcalcifications in digital mammograms. Digital mammograms are obtained and regions-of-interest (ROIs) are selected therefrom which contain suspected microcalcifications, either individual or clustered microcalcifications. The suspect ROIs are background-trend corrected, followed by Fourier transformation and power spectrum calculation to perform detection in the frequency domain. Detection can also be carried out in the spatial domain by omitting the Fourier transformation and power spectrum calculation. The ROI is then scaled for input into a neural network trained to detect microcalcifications. The neural network outputs ROIs with detected microcalcifications. The method and system can also include normalizing the background-trend corrected ROIs and imputing the normalized ROI to a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect microcalcifications. The output ROI of the shift-invariant neural network is thresholded to remove additional false positive detections, and then the thresholded ROI undergoes a cluster detection to detect clustered microcalcifications. Feature extraction techniques can be applied to the remaining ROI to remove additional false positive detections.
154 Citations
48 Claims
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1. A method of detecting microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:
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obtaining a digital mammogram; extracting regions of interest from said digital mammogram suspected of containing a microcalcification; converting said regions of interest into corresponding numerical data; inputting said numerical data to a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect microcalcifications for processing of said numerical data by said neural network, said neural network outputting corresponding output images; detecting a microcalcification in said digital mammogram using said output images. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A system for detecting microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:
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a device for obtaining a digital mammogram; a detector connected to said device which detects suspected microcalcifications in said digital mammogram; a region of interest selector, connected to said device and said detector, which selects regions of interest in said digital mammogram corresponding to said suspected microcalcifications; a region of interest processing device outputting processed regions of interest; an input data scaler connected to said region of interest processing device for numerically scaling said processed regions of interest; a shift-invariant neural network receiving as input data said numerically scaled regions of interest from said input data scaler and outputting corresponding output images; and a microcalcification detector for detecting microcalcifications in said output images. - View Dependent Claims (9)
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10. A method of detecting clustered microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:
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obtaining a digital mammogram; extracting regions of interest from said digital mammogram suspected of containing a clustered microcalcification; converting said regions of interest into corresponding numerical data; inputting said numerical data into a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect clustered microcalcifications; processing said numerical data by said shift-invariant neural network to produce corresponding output images; detecting a clustered microcalcification in said digital mammogram using said output images. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28)
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26. A method as recited in claim 26, wherein removing said false-positives comprises:
feature thresholding said image feature analysis. - View Dependent Claims (27)
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29. A system for detecting clustered microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:
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a device for obtaining a digital mammogram; a detector connected to said device which detects suspected microcalcifications in said digital mammogram; a region of interest selector, connected to said device and said detector, which selects regions of interest in said digital mammogram corresponding to said suspected microcalcifications; a region of interest processing device outputting processed regions of interest; an input data scaler connected to said region of interest processing device for numerically scaling said processed regions of interest; a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect clustered microcalcifications receiving as input data said numerically scaled regions of interest from said data scaler and outputting corresponding output images; and a microcalcification detector for detecting microcalcifications in said output images. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
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37. A system for detecting clustered microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:
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a device for obtaining a digital mammogram; a detector connected to said device which detects suspected microcalcifications in said digital mammogram; a region of interest selector, connected to said device and said detector, which selects regions of interest in said digital mammogram corresponding to said suspected microcalcifications; a region of interest processing device outputting a processed regions of interest; an input data scaler connected to said region of interest processing device for numerically scaling said processed regions of interest; a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect clustered microcalcifications receiving as input data said numerically scaled regions of interest from said data scaler and outputting corresponding output images; a microcalcification detector for detecting microcalcifications in said output images; and an apparatus for performing image feature analysis on microcalcifications detected by said microcalcification detector. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48)
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Specification