Differentiation of Malignant and Benign Masses on Mammograms Using Radial Local Ternary Pattern

Abstract. Texture information of breast masses may be useful in differentiating malignant from benign masses on digital mammograms. Our previous mass classification scheme relied on shape and margin features based on manual contours of masses. In this study, we investigated the texture features that were determined in regions automatically selected from square regions of interest (ROIs) including masses. As a preliminary investigation, 149 ROIs including 91 malignant and 58 benign masses were used for evaluation by a leave-one-out cross validation. The local ternary pattern and local variance were determined in sub regions with the high contrast and a core region. Using an artificial neural network, the classification performance of 0.848 in terms of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was obtained

Classifying breast masses in volumetric whole breast ultrasound data: a 2.5-dimensional approach

The aim of this paper is to investigate a 2.5-dimensional approach in classifying masses as benign or malignant in volumetric anisotropic voxel whole breast ultrasound data. In this paper, the term 2.5-dimensional refers to the use of a series of 2-dimensional images. While mammography is very effective in breast cancer screening in general, it is less sensitive in detecting breast cancer in younger women or women with dense breasts. Breast ultrasonography does not have the same limitation and is a valuable adjunct in breast cancer detection. The current study focuses on a new 2.5-dimensional approach in analyzing the volumetric whole breast ultrasound data for mass classification

Usefulness of presentation of similar images in the diagnosis of breast masses on mammograms: comparison of observer performances in Japan and the USA

Abstract Computer-aided diagnosis has potential in improving radiologists' diagnosis, and presentation of similar images as a reference may provide additional useful information for distinction between benign and malignant lesions. In this study, we evaluated the usefulness of presentation of reference images in observer performance studies and compared the results obtained by groups of observers practicing in the United States and Japan. The results showed that the presentation of the reference images was generally effective for both groups, as the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves improved from 0.915 to 0.924 for the group in the US and from 0.913 to 0.925 for the group in Japan, although the differences were marginally (p = 0.047) and not (p = 0.13) statistically significant, respectively. There was a slight difference between the two groups in the way that the observers reacted to some benign cases, which might be due to differences in the population of screenees and in the socioclinical environment. In the future, it may be worthwhile to investigate the development of a customized system for physicians in different socio-clinical environments