Patent · US Expired

Identification of suspicious mass regions in mammograms

US5615243A · kind A · utility

25Cited by
3References
7Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 12, 1996
Grant dateMar 25, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 12, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T7/0012
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method of detecting and identifying abnormal regions in living tissue depicted in a digital radiograph includes, in each of a number of stages, identifying an abnormal region; and reducing any overlap between the identified regions. Typically the digital radiograph is a mammogram and the abnormal regions are suspicious mass regions in a human breast. Five stages of identifying are used to detect a region with a global minimum in the smoothed image; a region with a local minimum in the original image; a region with a local minimum in the filtered image; a small region of rounded shape and low contrast; and a region of rounded shape and high contrast.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.