Method and system for the detection of microcalcifications in digital mammograms

A system for detecting microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:

• a device for obtaining a digital mammogram;
• a detector connected to said device which detects suspected microcalcifications in said digital mammogram;
• a region of interest selector, connected to said device and said detector, which selects regions of interest in said digital mammogram corresponding to said suspected microcalcifications;
• a region of interest processing device outputting processed regions of interest;
• an input data scaler connected to said region of interest processing device for numerically scaling said processed regions of interest;
• a shift-invariant neural network receiving as input data said numerically scaled regions of interest from said input data scaler and outputting corresponding output images;
• and
• a microcalcification detector for detecting microcalcifications in said output images.

A method of detecting clustered microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:

• obtaining a digital mammogram;
• extracting regions of interest from said digital mammogram suspected of containing a clustered microcalcification;
• converting said regions of interest into corresponding numerical data;
• inputting said numerical data into a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect clustered microcalcifications;
• processing said numerical data by said shift-invariant neural network to produce corresponding output images;
• detecting a clustered microcalcification in said digital mammogram using said output images.

A system for detecting clustered microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:

• a device for obtaining a digital mammogram;
• a detector connected to said device which detects suspected microcalcifications in said digital mammogram;
• a region of interest selector, connected to said device and said detector, which selects regions of interest in said digital mammogram corresponding to said suspected microcalcifications;
• a region of interest processing device outputting processed regions of interest;
• an input data scaler connected to said region of interest processing device for numerically scaling said processed regions of interest;
• a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect clustered microcalcifications receiving as input data said numerically scaled regions of interest from said data scaler and outputting corresponding output images;
• and
• a microcalcification detector for detecting microcalcifications in said output images.

A system for detecting clustered microcalcifications in a digital mammogram, comprising:

• a device for obtaining a digital mammogram;
• a detector connected to said device which detects suspected microcalcifications in said digital mammogram;
• a region of interest selector, connected to said device and said detector, which selects regions of interest in said digital mammogram corresponding to said suspected microcalcifications;
• a region of interest processing device outputting a processed regions of interest;
• an input data scaler connected to said region of interest processing device for numerically scaling said processed regions of interest;
• a shift-invariant neural network trained to detect clustered microcalcifications receiving as input data said numerically scaled regions of interest from said data scaler and outputting corresponding output images;
• a microcalcification detector for detecting microcalcifications in said output images;
• and
• an apparatus for performing image feature analysis on microcalcifications detected by said microcalcification detector.