Malignant and Benign Mass Segmentation in Mammograms Using Active Contour Methods

The correct segmentation of tumours can simplify formulate the diagnostic hypothesis, particularly in cases of irregular shapes, with fuzzy margins or spicules growing into the surrounding tissue, which are more likely to be malignant. In this study, the following active contour methods were used to segment the masses: an edge-based active contour model using an inflation/deflation force with a damping coefficient (EM), a geometric active contour model (GAC) and an active contour without edges (ACWE). The preprocessing techniques presented in this publication are to reduce noise and at the same time amplify uniform areas of images in order to improve segmentation results. In addition, the use of image sampling by bicubic interpolation was tested to shorten the evolution time of active contour methods. The experiments used a test set composed of 100 cases taken from two publicly available databases: Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM) and Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) database. The qualitative assessment concerned the ability to formulate an adequate diagnostic hypothesis and, for the individual methods (malignant and benign cases together), it amounted to at least: 81% (EM), 76% (GAC), and 69% (ACWE). The quantitative test consisted of measuring the following indexes: overlap value (OV) and extra fraction (EF). The OV of the segmentation for malignant and benign cases had the following average values: 0.81 +/- 0.10 (EM), 0.79 +/- 0.09 (GAC), 0.76 +/- 0.18 (ACWE). The average values of the EF index, in turn, amounted to: 0.07 +/- 0.06 (EM), 0.07 +/- 0.05 (GAC) 0.34 +/- 0.32 (ACWE). The qualitative and quantitative results obtained are the best for EM and are comparable or better than for other methods presented in the literature.