Fractal geometry and multifractals in analyzing and processing medical data and images

A traditional way for describing objects, based on the well-known Euclidean geometry, is not capable to describe different natural objects and phenomena such as clouds, relief shapes, trends in economy, etc. On the contrary fractal geometry and its extension multifractals are new "tools" which can be used for describing, modeling, analyzing and processing different complex shapes and signals. This paper considers fractal geometry and multifractals and their application in signal analyzing and processing particularly in medical signal analysis

ONCOnet: Original article UDC: 618.146-006:616.351-006:615.849.1:577.2 Archive of Oncology 2002;10(4):283-93.

analyzing and processing medical data and image

Multifractal analysis of the UV/VIS spectra of malignant ascites: Confirmation of the diagnostic validity of a clinically evaluated spectral analysis

Multifractal (MF) approach was applied for the analysis of ultraviolet/visible (UV/VIS) spectra as an independent confirmation of the diagnostic efficacy of UV/VIS spectral analysis of intraperitoneal fluids, ascites, taken from patients with a known clinical diagnosis. Recently, it was reported that from UV/VIS spectra differentiation of malignant from benign ascites is possible. Here, it was shown that by using MF analysis of UV/VIS spectra, the objective classification of UV/VIS spectra is possible. The applicability of UV/VIS analysis and MF classification of spectra were evaluated on N = 68 cases, of which M = 64 and B = 4 were clinically confirmed as malignant and benign, respectively. The overall diagnostic efficacy was 89.71% when using on-line analysis of UV/VIS spectra (61 out of 68 samples were positively recognized: 58 malignant and 3 benign), and even 95.59% by using off-line MF classsification (65 out of 68 samples were classified correctly: 63 malignant and 2 benign). It can be inferred that UV/VIS spectral analysis of ascites, combined with MF analysis, could be suggested as a successful and safe screening method in the evaluation of intraperitoneal fluids

Diagnostic spectroscopic and computer-aided evaluation of malignancy from UV/VIS spectra of clear pleural effusions

The automated, computer-aided method for differentiation and classification of malignant (M) from benign (B) cases, by analyzing the UV/VIS spectra of pleural effusions is described. It was shown that by two independent objective features, the maximum of Katz fractal dimension (KFDmax) and the area under normalized UV/VIS absorbance curve (Area), highly reliable M-B classification is possible. In the Area-KFDmax space M and B samples are linearly separable permitting thus the use of linear support vector machine as a classification tool. By analyzing 104 samples of UV/VIS spectra of pleural effusions (88 M and 16 B) collected from patients at the Clinic for Lung Diseases and Tuberculosis, Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, the accuracy of 95.45% for M cases and 100% for B cases are obtained by using the proposed method. It was shown that by applying some modifications, which are suggested in the paper, the accuracy of 100% for M cases can be reached

AFM studies of DNA structures extracted from adriamycin treated and non-treated Ehrlich tumor cells

Atomic force microscopy (AFM), a unique tool to investigate drug treatment of cancer cells, was used to analyze the anti-neoplastic activity of adriamycin by comparing DNA structures of non-treated and adriamycin-treated Ehrlich tumor cells. The non-treated cells exhibited a highly branched intact chromatin structure, related to the intensive DNA replication in cancer cells. Images from adriamycin-treated tumor cells showed that the DNA chains were broken and the chromatin structure had been destroyed. Possible explanations for these effects of adriamycin are considered: breakage of hydrogen bonding, oxidation and intercalation effects, as well as the poisoning of topoisomerase enzyme. DNA fractal and multifractal analyses, performed in order to evaluate the degree of bond scission, showed that the treated DNA had become more fractal compared to non-treated DNA