Optimal filter-based detection of microcalcifications

This paper deals with the problem of texture feature extraction in digital mammograms. We use the extracted features to discriminate between texture representing clusters of microcalcifications and texture representing normal tissue. Having a two-class problem, we suggest a texture feature extraction method based on a single filter optimized with respect to the Fisher criterion. The advantage of this criterion is that it uses both the feature mean and the feature variance to achieve good feature separation. Image compression is desirable to facilitate electronic transmission and storage of digitized mammograms. In this paper, we also explore the effects of data compression on the performance of our proposed detection scheme. The mammograms in our test set were compressed at different ratios using the Joint Photographic Experts Group compression method. Results from an experimental study indicate that our scheme is very well suited for detecting clustered microcalcifications in both uncompressed and compressed mammograms. For the uncompressed mammograms, at a rate of 1.5 false positive clusters/image our method reaches a true positive rate of about 95%, which is comparable to the best results achieved so far. The detection performance for images compressed by a factor of about four is very similar to the performance for uncompressed images.