An automated detection method of mammographic masses existing around thick-mammary-gland and near chest-wall regions

We have been developing an automated detection algorithm for masses on mammograms. There were the cases of missed detections, in most of which the masses existed around thick-mammarygland region or near chest-wall region. The purpose of this study is to develop an algorithm for detecting such masses based on a sector-shape mass-pattern model. After applying the new technique along with our previous method to 3575 digitized mammograms, the detection sensitivity was changed from 78% to 93% at the number of false positives with varying from 1.2 to 1.9 per image. This result indicated that the new technique improved the overall performance of our CAD system for detecting the masses on mammograms effectively. D 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.