Adaptation of multifractal analysis to segmentation of microcalcifications in digital mammograms

A method for detecting microcalcifications in digital mammograms is proposed. After recognizing basic features of microcalcifications we introduced several modifications in multifractal analysis, obtaining an efficient method adapted to enhance only small light parts not belonging to surrounding tissue, possibly microcalcifications. Started with a mammogram image, a method creates corresponding multifractal image from which a radiologist has the freedom to change the level of segmentation in an interactive manner and to find suspicious regions, which may contain microcalcifications. Additional postprocessing, based on mathematical morphology, refines the procedure by selecting and outlining regions that contain clusters with microcalcifications. The proposed method was tested through referent mammograms from MiniMIAS database, which is available at public domain. The proposed method successfully extracted microcalcifications in all (clinically approved) cases belonging to this database. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.