Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital Mammograms

Objective: Cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with 1 in 5 of all new cancers arising in the breast. The introduction of mammography for the radiological diagnosis of breast abnormalities, significantly decreased their mortality rates. Accurate detection and classificat...

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Main Authors: Kosmia Loizidou, Galateia Skouroumouni, Christos Nikolaou, Costas Pitris
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2022-01-01
Series:IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9940291/
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author Kosmia Loizidou
Galateia Skouroumouni
Christos Nikolaou
Costas Pitris
author_facet Kosmia Loizidou
Galateia Skouroumouni
Christos Nikolaou
Costas Pitris
author_sort Kosmia Loizidou
collection DOAJ
description Objective: Cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with 1 in 5 of all new cancers arising in the breast. The introduction of mammography for the radiological diagnosis of breast abnormalities, significantly decreased their mortality rates. Accurate detection and classification of breast masses in mammograms is especially challenging for various reasons, including low contrast and the normal variations of breast tissue density. Various Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems are being developed to assist radiologists with the accurate classification of breast abnormalities. Methods: In this study, subtraction of temporally sequential digital mammograms and machine learning are proposed for the automatic segmentation and classification of masses. The performance of the algorithm was evaluated on a dataset created especially for the purposes of this study, with 320 images from 80 patients (two time points and two views of each breast) with precisely annotated mass locations by two radiologists. Results: Ninety-six features were extracted and ten classifiers were tested in a leave-one-patient-out and k-fold cross-validation process. Using Neural Networks, the detection of masses was 99.9% accurate. The classification accuracy of the masses as benign or suspicious increased from 92.6%, using the state-of-the-art temporal analysis, to 98%, using the proposed methodology. The improvement was statistically significant (p-value < 0.05). Conclusion: These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the subtraction of temporally consecutive mammograms for the diagnosis of breast masses. Clinical and Translational Impact Statement: The proposed algorithm has the potential to substantially contribute to the development of automated breast cancer Computer-Aided Diagnosis systems with significant impact on patient prognosis.
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spelling doaj.art-ad5e31e24aea4aefa1b9d02ff431c8d22022-12-22T04:14:33ZengIEEEIEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine2168-23722022-01-011011110.1109/JTEHM.2022.32198919940291Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital MammogramsKosmia Loizidou0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0810-4926Galateia Skouroumouni1Christos Nikolaou2Costas Pitris3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5559-1050Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CyprusRadiology Department, German Oncology Center, Limassol, CyprusRadiology Department, Limassol General Hospital, Limassol, CyprusDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CyprusObjective: Cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with 1 in 5 of all new cancers arising in the breast. The introduction of mammography for the radiological diagnosis of breast abnormalities, significantly decreased their mortality rates. Accurate detection and classification of breast masses in mammograms is especially challenging for various reasons, including low contrast and the normal variations of breast tissue density. Various Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems are being developed to assist radiologists with the accurate classification of breast abnormalities. Methods: In this study, subtraction of temporally sequential digital mammograms and machine learning are proposed for the automatic segmentation and classification of masses. The performance of the algorithm was evaluated on a dataset created especially for the purposes of this study, with 320 images from 80 patients (two time points and two views of each breast) with precisely annotated mass locations by two radiologists. Results: Ninety-six features were extracted and ten classifiers were tested in a leave-one-patient-out and k-fold cross-validation process. Using Neural Networks, the detection of masses was 99.9% accurate. The classification accuracy of the masses as benign or suspicious increased from 92.6%, using the state-of-the-art temporal analysis, to 98%, using the proposed methodology. The improvement was statistically significant (p-value < 0.05). Conclusion: These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the subtraction of temporally consecutive mammograms for the diagnosis of breast masses. Clinical and Translational Impact Statement: The proposed algorithm has the potential to substantially contribute to the development of automated breast cancer Computer-Aided Diagnosis systems with significant impact on patient prognosis.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9940291/Breast cancerComputer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD)machine learningsequential mammogramstemporal subtraction
spellingShingle Kosmia Loizidou
Galateia Skouroumouni
Christos Nikolaou
Costas Pitris
Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital Mammograms
IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine
Breast cancer
Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD)
machine learning
sequential mammograms
temporal subtraction
title Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital Mammograms
title_full Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital Mammograms
title_fullStr Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital Mammograms
title_full_unstemmed Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital Mammograms
title_short Automatic Breast Mass Segmentation and Classification Using Subtraction of Temporally Sequential Digital Mammograms
title_sort automatic breast mass segmentation and classification using subtraction of temporally sequential digital mammograms
topic Breast cancer
Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD)
machine learning
sequential mammograms
temporal subtraction
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9940291/
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AT christosnikolaou automaticbreastmasssegmentationandclassificationusingsubtractionoftemporallysequentialdigitalmammograms
AT costaspitris automaticbreastmasssegmentationandclassificationusingsubtractionoftemporallysequentialdigitalmammograms