A combined method for automatic identification of the breast boundary in mammograms

Zhili Chen, Reyer Zwiggelaar

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

29 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Breast region segmentation is an essential prerequisite in the (semi-)automatic analysis of digital or digitised mammographic images, which aims to separate the breast region from background information in mammograms. It normally consists of two independent segmentations, which are breast-background segmentation and pectoral muscle segmentation, respectively. The first identifies the boundary between the breast and background, and the second identifies the boundary of the pectoral muscle (present in medio-lateral oblique (MLO) views). In this paper, we propose a method for automatic identification of the breast boundary based on a combination of segmentation approaches, including histogram thresholding, edge detection, contour growing, polynomial fitting, and region growing. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed method, it is tested using two mammographic datasets: the full MIAS database and a large dataset taken from the EPIC database. For the breast-background segmentation, 98.8% and 91.5% nearly accurate results are obtained for the MIAS and EPIC data, respectively. For the pectoral muscle segmentation, 92.8% and 87.9% nearly accurate results are achieved for these two datasets. A comparison with two other methods is also provided based on the full MIAS database. These indicate the proposed method performs effectively in identifying the breast boundary in digitised mammograms. The obtained segmentation results can be used for further analysis in computer-aided diagnosis.
Original languageEnglish
Pages121-125
Number of pages5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Oct 2012
Event5th International Conference on BioMedical Engineering and Informatics - Chongqing, China
Duration: 16 Oct 201218 Oct 2012

Conference

Conference5th International Conference on BioMedical Engineering and Informatics
Abbreviated titleBMEI 2012
Country/TerritoryChina
CityChongqing
Period16 Oct 201218 Oct 2012

Keywords

  • breast boundary
  • mammography
  • pectoral muscle
  • segmentation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A combined method for automatic identification of the breast boundary in mammograms'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this