Method and system for detection of suspicious lesions in digital mammograms using a combination of spiculation and density signals
DCFirst Claim
1. A method for automated detection of suspicious lesions in a digital mammogram, comprising the steps of:
- computing mass information corresponding to the digital mammogram, said mass information having mass location information;
independent of said step of computing mass information, computing spiculation information corresponding to the digital mammogram, said spiculation information having spiculation location information; and
identifying suspicious lesions in the digital mammogram using said mass information and said spiculation information.
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Abstract
A method and system for detecting suspicious portions of digital mammograms by using independently calculated mass and spiculation information is disclosed. The method is for use in a computer aided diagnosis system that is designed to bring suspicious or possibly cancerous lesions in fibrous breast tissue to the attention of a radiologist or other medical professional. In a preferred embodiment, spiculation information and mass information are independently calculated, with the computed spiculation information not being dependent on results of the mass information computation, thus leading to greater reliability. Systems according to a preferred embodiment also compute spiculation information either prior to, or concurrently with, the computation of mass information, thus allowing increased overall system speed.
113 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for automated detection of suspicious lesions in a digital mammogram, comprising the steps of:
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computing mass information corresponding to the digital mammogram, said mass information having mass location information;
independent of said step of computing mass information, computing spiculation information corresponding to the digital mammogram, said spiculation information having spiculation location information; and
identifying suspicious lesions in the digital mammogram using said mass information and said spiculation information. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
weighting said mass metric by a first weight to produce a weighted mass metric;
weighting said spiculation metric by a second weight to produce a weighted spiculation metric;
combining said weighted mass metric and said weighted spiculation metric to produce a result;
comparing said result to a predetermined threshold;
identifying the corresponding location as suspicious if said result is greater than said predetermined threshold; and
identifying the corresponding location as normal if said result is not greater than said predetermined threshold.
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9. The method of claim 8, wherein said first weight, said second weight, and said predetermined threshold are determined using a training algorithm on a training set of digital mammograms, said training set comprising a plurality of examples of suspicious lesions and a plurality of examples of normal breast structure.
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10. A computer program product for directing a computing apparatus to automatically detect suspicious lesions in a digital mammogram, thus permitting the suspicious lesions to be brought to the attention of a medical professional, said computer program product comprising:
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computer code for computing mass information corresponding to the digital mammogram, said mass information having mass location information;
computer code for computing, independent of the computation of said mass information, spiculation information corresponding to the digital mammogram, said spiculation information having spiculation location information; and
computer code for identifying suspicious lesions in the digital mammogram using said mass information and said spiculation information. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14)
weighting said mass metric by a first weight to produce a weighted mass metric;
weighting said spiculation metric by a second weight to produce a weighted spiculation metric;
combining said weighted mass metric and said weighted spiculation metric to produce a result;
comparing said result to a predetermined threshold;
identifying the corresponding location as suspicious if said result is greater than said predetermined threshold; and
identifying the corresponding location as normal if said result is not greater than said predetermined threshold.
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15. An automated system for detecting suspicious portions of a digitized mammogram, comprising:
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means for computing mass information corresponding to the digitized mammogram, said mass information having mass location information;
means for computing spiculation information corresponding to the digitized mammogram independent of said mass information, said spiculation information having spiculation location information; and
means for classifying said mass information and said spiculation information for detecting the suspicious portions of the digital mammogram. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
means for computing at least one combined classification parameter defined by a combination of said mass information and said spiculation information; and
means for identifying values for which said at least one combined classification parameter corresponds to a suspicious portion of the digital mammogram.
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19. The automated system of claim 17, wherein said means for classifying comprises means for implementing a neural network algorithm capable of identifying the suspicious portions of the digital mammogram using said mass information and said spiculation information.
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20. The automated system of claim 18, wherein said means for classifying includes a look up table that is indexed according to scalar quantities associated with said mass information and said spiculation information.
Specification