| Peer-Reviewed

Diagnosis of Breast Cancer from Mammograms by Using Fractal Measures

Received: 13 September 2013    Accepted:     Published: 30 October 2013
Views:       Downloads:
Abstract

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women. By the following research we report on a morphological study of 30 cases as seen in mammograms, trying to discriminate among benign and malignant tumors in order to develop new tools investigation in cancer diagnosis. From the contour of each mass, we computed the fractal dimension using box-counting algorithm and for each mammogram texture we computed the lacunarity. We found that the fractal dimension value is not sufficient to differentiate among benign and malignant cases, but it was really effective when it was combined with lacunarity. In conclusion, the results obtained showed that the fractal measure is an important tool for the diagnosis of breast cancer.

Published in International Journal of Medical Imaging (Volume 1, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14
Page(s) 32-38
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Breast Cancer, Diagnosis, Fractal Dimension, Image Analysis, Lacunarity, Mammogram

References
[1] E. B. Mendelson, "Current status of breast: Categorical course in diagnostic radiology physics," Physical Aspects of Breast Considerations, pp. 295–309, 1999.
[2] L. Tabar, and P. Dean, Teaching atlas of mammography, New York: Time. 3rd ed., 2001.
[3] R. M. Rangayyan, and T. M. Nguyen, "Fractal Analysis of Contours of Breast Masses in Mammograms," J. Digit. Imaging, vol. 20, pp. 223–237, Sep. 2007.
[4] H. Li, "Computer texture analysis of mammographic parenchymal patterns of digitized mammograms," International Congress Serie, vol. 1268, pp. 878–881, 2004.
[5] R. Gupta, and P. E. Undrill, "The use of texture analysis to delineate suspicious masses in mammography," Phys. Med. Biol., vol. 40, pp. 835–855, May 1995.
[6] C. M. Kocur, "Using neural networks to select wavelet features for breast cancer diagnosis," IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Mag., vol. 15, pp. 95–102, 1996.
[7] R. J. Ferrari, "Analysis of asymmetry in mammograms via directional filtering with Gabor wavelets," IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging, vol. 20, pp. 953–964, Sep. 2001.
[8] M. E. Mavroforakis, "Mammographic masses characterization based on localized texture and dataset fractal analysis using linear, neural and support vector machine classifiers," Artif. Intell. Med., vol. 37, pp. 145–162, 2006.
[9] G. T. Tourassi, "A study on the computerized fractal analysis of architectural distortion in screening mammograms," Phys. Med. Biol., vol. 51, pp. 1299–1312, Mar. 2006.
[10] F. Georgsson, S. Jansson, and C. Olsen, "Fractal analysis of mammogram," Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4522, pp. 92–101, 2007.
[11] K. Yamada, "Quantitative expression of microcalcification distribution in mammograph by using fractal dimension," in Singapore ICCS/ISITA Communication on the Move, pp. 92–96, 1992.
[12] G. Landini, and J. W. Rippin, "Fractal dimensions of the epithelial-connective tissue interfaces in premalignant and malignant epithelial lesions of the floor of the mouth," Anal. Quant. Cytol. Histol., vol. 15, pp. 144–149, Apr. 1993.
[13] B. B. Mandelbrot, The fractal geometry of nature, Freeman: New York, 1983.
[14] S. S. Cross, "Fractals in pathology," J. Pathol., vol. 182, pp. 1–8, May 1997.
[15] G. A. Losa, and T. F. Nonnenmacher, "Self-similarity and fractal irregularity in pathologic tissues," Mod. Pathol., vol. 9, pp. 174–182, Mar. 1996.
[16] G. Landini, G. P. Misson, and P. I. Murray, "Fractal analysis of the normal human retinal fluorescein angiogram," Curr. Eye. Res., vol. 12, pp. 23–27, Jan. 1993.
[17] G. A. Losa, G. Baumann, and T. F. Nonnenmacher, "Fractal dimension of pericellular membranes in human lymphocytes and lymphoblastic leukemia cells," Pathol. Res. Pract., vol. 18, pp. 680–686, Jun. 1992.
[18] G. Landini, and J. W. Rippin, "Quantification of nuclear pleomorphism using an asymptotic fractal model," Anal. Quant. Cytol. Histol., vol. 18, pp. 167–176, Apr. 1996.
[19] S. S. Cross, J. P. Bury, P. B. Silcocks, T. J. Stephenson, and D. W. K. Cotton, "Fractal geometric analysis of colorectal polyps," J. Pathol., vol. 172, pp. 317–323, Apr. 1994.
[20] H. Li, M. L. Giger, O. I. Olopade, and L. Lan, "Fractal analysis of mammographic parenchymal patterns in breast cancer risk assessment," Acad. Radiol., vol. 14, pp. 513–521, May 2007.
[21] T. Nguyen, and R. Rangayyan, "Shape Analysis of Breast Masses in Mammograms via the Fractal Dimension," in Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medecine and Biology Society, pp. 3210–3213, 2005.
[22] N. Tanki, K. Murase, and M. Nagao, "A new parameter enhancing breast cancer detection in computer-aided diagnosis of X-ray mammograms," Igaku Butsuri, vol. 26, pp. 207–215, 2006.
[23] Y. Huang, and S. Yu, "Recognition of micro-calcifications in digital mammograms based on Markov random fiels and deterministic fractal modeling," in Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, pp. 3922–3925, 2007.
[24] P. Kestener, J. Lina, P. Saint-Jean, and A. Arneodo, "Wavelet-based multifractal formalism to assist in diagnosis in digitized mammograms," Image Analysis and Stereology, vol. 20, pp. 169–175, 2004.
[25] L. E. George, and K. H. Sager, "Breast cancer diagnosis using multi-fractal dimension spectra," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Signal Processing and Communications, pp. 592–595, 2007.
[26] A. Hemsley, and R. Mukundan, "Multifractal measures for tissue image classification and retrieval," In Proceedings of the 11th IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia, pp. 618–623, 2009.
[27] T. Mattfeldt, "Spatial pattern analysis using chaos theory: A nonlinear deterministic approach to the histological texture of tumours," in Fractals in Biology and Medicine, vol. II, G. A. Losa, D. Merlini, T. F. Nonnenmacher, E. R. Weibel Eds. Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser, pp. 50–72, 1997.
[28] American College of Radiology, Breast imaging reporting and data system atlas (BI-RADS Atlas), 2003.
[29] G. Landini, and J. W. Rippin, "How important is tumor shape? Quantification of the epithelial-connective tissue interface in oral lesions using local connected fractal dimension analysis," J. Pathol., vol. 179, pp. 210–217, Jun. 1996.
[30] G. Karemore, and M. Nielsen, "Fractal dimension and lacunarity analysis of mammographic patterns in assessing breast cancer risk related to HRT treated population: a longitudinal and cross-sectional study," in Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 7260, pp. 72602F 1–9, 2009.
[31] D. Crişan, Image processing using fractal techniques. Ph. dissertation, Automatic Control and Industrial Informatics Dept., Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, 2005.
[32] W. S. Rasband, ImageJ, U. S. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/, 1997-2005.
[33] A. Karperien, FracLac for ImageJ, version 2.5, 1999-2007.
[34] R. Dobrescu, and C. Vasilescu Eds., Interdisciplinary applications of fractal and chaos theory, Romanian Academy Printing House: Bucharest, 2004.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Radu Dobrescu, Loretta Ichim, Daniela Crişan. (2013). Diagnosis of Breast Cancer from Mammograms by Using Fractal Measures. International Journal of Medical Imaging, 1(2), 32-38. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14

    Copy | Download

    ACS Style

    Radu Dobrescu; Loretta Ichim; Daniela Crişan. Diagnosis of Breast Cancer from Mammograms by Using Fractal Measures. Int. J. Med. Imaging 2013, 1(2), 32-38. doi: 10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14

    Copy | Download

    AMA Style

    Radu Dobrescu, Loretta Ichim, Daniela Crişan. Diagnosis of Breast Cancer from Mammograms by Using Fractal Measures. Int J Med Imaging. 2013;1(2):32-38. doi: 10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14

    Copy | Download

  • @article{10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14,
      author = {Radu Dobrescu and Loretta Ichim and Daniela Crişan},
      title = {Diagnosis of Breast Cancer from Mammograms by Using Fractal Measures},
      journal = {International Journal of Medical Imaging},
      volume = {1},
      number = {2},
      pages = {32-38},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijmi.20130102.14},
      abstract = {Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women. By the following research we report on a morphological study of 30 cases as seen in mammograms, trying to discriminate among benign and malignant tumors in order to develop new tools investigation in cancer diagnosis. From the contour of each mass, we computed the fractal dimension using box-counting algorithm and for each mammogram texture we computed the lacunarity. We found that the fractal dimension value is not sufficient to differentiate among benign and malignant cases, but it was really effective when it was combined with lacunarity. In conclusion, the results obtained showed that the fractal measure is an important tool for the diagnosis of breast cancer.},
     year = {2013}
    }
    

    Copy | Download

  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Diagnosis of Breast Cancer from Mammograms by Using Fractal Measures
    AU  - Radu Dobrescu
    AU  - Loretta Ichim
    AU  - Daniela Crişan
    Y1  - 2013/10/30
    PY  - 2013
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14
    T2  - International Journal of Medical Imaging
    JF  - International Journal of Medical Imaging
    JO  - International Journal of Medical Imaging
    SP  - 32
    EP  - 38
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2330-832X
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijmi.20130102.14
    AB  - Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women. By the following research we report on a morphological study of 30 cases as seen in mammograms, trying to discriminate among benign and malignant tumors in order to develop new tools investigation in cancer diagnosis. From the contour of each mass, we computed the fractal dimension using box-counting algorithm and for each mammogram texture we computed the lacunarity. We found that the fractal dimension value is not sufficient to differentiate among benign and malignant cases, but it was really effective when it was combined with lacunarity. In conclusion, the results obtained showed that the fractal measure is an important tool for the diagnosis of breast cancer.
    VL  - 1
    IS  - 2
    ER  - 

    Copy | Download

Author Information
  • Automatic Control and Industrial Informatics Department, Politechnic University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

  • Automatic Control and Industrial Informatics Department, Politechnic University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania; Stefan S. Nicolau Institute of Virology, Bucharest, Romania

  • Sections