Removing radiopaque artifacts from mammograms using area morphology

Michael A. Wirth; Jennifer Lyon; Dennis Nikitenko; Alexei Stapinski

doi:10.1117/12.535372

12 May 2004 Removing radiopaque artifacts from mammograms using area morphology

Michael A. Wirth, Jennifer Lyon, Dennis Nikitenko, Alexei Stapinski

Proceedings Volume 5370, Medical Imaging 2004: Image Processing; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.535372
Event: Medical Imaging 2004, 2004, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

A mammogram contains two distinctive regions: the exposed breast region and the unexposed air-background region. The background region often contains radiopaque artifacts in the form of identification labels, radiopaque markers, and wedges. The primary motivation for removing such artifacts from mammograms is too lessen their effect on subsequent processing algorithms. For example, accurate segmentation of the breast region is an important pre-processing step in the computerized analysis of mammograms. It allows the search for abnormalities to be limited to the breast region of the mammogram without undue influence from the background. One of the problems with precise segmentation of the breast region is that high-intensity radiopaque artifacts can result in a non-uniform background region, and interfere with deriving an accurate representation of the breast contour. This paper proposes a new approach for removing radiopaque artifacts from the background region of mammograms based on the concept of area morphology. Area morphology uses attributes of structures rather than a fixed shape structuring element as used in classical morphology. This allows radiopaque artifacts to be removed, irrespective of shape.

Citation Download Citation

Michael A. Wirth, Jennifer Lyon, Dennis Nikitenko, and Alexei Stapinski "Removing radiopaque artifacts from mammograms using area morphology", Proc. SPIE 5370, Medical Imaging 2004: Image Processing, (12 May 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.535372

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