Enhancement Of Mammographic Images For Detection Of Microcalcifications

A novel approach to image enhancement of digital mammography images is introduced, for more accurate detection of microcalcification clusters. In original mammographic images obtained by X-ray radiography, most of the information is hidden to the human observer. The method is based on redundant discrete wavelet transform due to its good properties: shift invariance and numeric robustness. The procedure consists of three steps: low-frequency tissue density component removal, noise filtering, and microcalcification enhancement. The experimental results have shown good properties of the proposed method. 1. INTRODUCTION Many authors deal with the problem of automatic segmentation of microcalcification clusters in digital mammography. Presence of microcalcifications and skin thickening is an indirect sign of malignant masses. Unfortunately, mammograms (obtained by breast radiography) as normally viewed, display only about 3% of the information they detect [Laine, Fan, and Yang, 1995]. Mai..