Automatic Region Growing Method for Segmentation of Tumor on Mammogram Image

Nayab Shaik MSRIT, Bangalore abdul . nayab c^r gmail.com Megha.P.Arakeri MSRIT, Bangalore rnegha_u c(r^yahoo.co.in

Abstract - Breast cancer is a common female malignancy , does not show any symptoms in its 0 early stage. Screening tests are therefore important to reduce the death rates. By far , mammography test proves to be the test for early detection of breast cancer . However , this test has limitations such as darkness and the existence of unwanted noise on the breast image , which can obscure breast ` tumors. Many image processing techniques have been

trouble in its early stage. Therefore screening tests are important to reduce the death rates. They are many screening tests (Imaging Techniques) are available for different type of cancers. The main imaging techniques are MRI, CT scan, X-ray (radiography) and Mammography. In radiography and CT scan, X-ray photons are transmitting through the body onto an Xray sensitive detector forms images. Using this image doctors find abnormities. In MRI, magnetic and radio waves are used. This technique used to find brain abnormities. In same way mammography used for early detection of breast cancer. Mammography is a specific type of imaging technique, which use low-dose x-ray waves to examine breast. A mammography exam, called a mammogram, is used to aid in the early detection and diagnosis of breast diseases in women. Image segmentation technique is required to extract tumor area on mammogram image. Image Segmentation subdivides an image into its constituent parts or objects. The level to which this subdivision is carried out depends on the

introduced in order to detect the edges or segment these breast cancer morphologies including the seed based region growing (SBRG) algorithm . However, two parameters , namely the seed point and the threshold value of the conventional SBRG algorithm need to be determined manually. It is time consuming process. This paper proposes automatic region growing algorithm , which find these two parameters automatically . It also detects and

distinguish breast tumor automatically from the background.

Keywords-Mammography, Moving

K-means

problem being solved. That is, segmentation should stop when the objects of interest in an application have been isolated. The Exiting segmentation techniques are Histogram-based segmentation, Edge detection

Clustering, GUI, Region growing, seed point and Threshold value.

1. INTRODUCTION
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in World. Cancer does not show any symptoms in its early
0

segmentation, Region growing and Region splitting segmentation. In general, autonomous image segmentation is one of the most difficult'tasks in image processing. In this paper, the region growing segmentation technique is used. Because it has

stage. Especially breast cancer does not show any

advantages like stability with respecti . e noise and edges founded are thin and connected . In this method seed point is input . The regions are iteratively grown by comparing all unallocated neighboring pixels with using threshold value . But the drawback of this method is seed point and threshold values are calculated manually. These are done on a trial and error basis and must be repeated until satisfactory results are obtained. This leads to time-consuming issue. Furthermore, the results obtained from the processes are highly subjective to the user . This paper presents a new automatic region growing method to segment tumor. This method combines Moving K-means Clustering algorithm and Proposed Region growing algorithm.

i N Otsu [ 5] discuss

about A Threshold

Selection Method from Gray-Level Histograms. A nonparametric and unsupervised method of automatic threshold selection for picture segmentation is presented . An optimal threshold is selected by the discriminant criterion , namely, so as to maximize the separability of the resultant classes in gray levels. The procedure is very simple , utilizing only the zeroth- and the first-order cumulative moments of the gray-level histogram. It is straightforward to extend the method to multi threshold problems. Several experimental results are also presented to support the validity of the method.

Rolf Adams and Leanne Bischof [6] Discuss

about seeded region growing the segmentation of intensity images in which the individual objects or

2. LITERATURE SURVEY
In this following section, we present a brief summary of earlier work carried out in the field Edward A Sickles [3] discuss about Mammographic Features of Early Breast Cancer. The Strength of mammography is its ability to detect breast cancers before they grow large enough to be palpable. However, to identify cancers at the earliest possible stage, when they are small and difficult to recognize, the radiologist must learn to search not only for the conventional mammographic features of carcinoma, albeit on a smaller than usual scale, but also for the more subtle, indirect signs of malignancy. P K sinha and Q H hong[4] discuss about an Improved Median Filter. Median filter is frequently chosen for image smoothing. However, the level of noise reduction offered by the median filter may not be sufficiently high for some applications. Here a modified median filtering technique which offers improved smoothing performance.

regions in the image are characterized by connected pixels of similar value. Thus, the method presented may not be applicable to highly textured images or to range images . It may be applied to images affected by lighting variation but only after suitable preprocessing. The new algorithm for segmentation of intensity images which is robust, rapid , and free of tuning parameters. The method, however, requires the input of a number of seeds , either individual pixels or regions , which will control the formation of regions into which the image tivili be segmented.

%' N. Ikonomakis, K.N. Plataniotis, M. Zervakis, A.N. Venetsanopoulos [7] Discuss about Region growing and region merging image, segmentation. Image segmentation refers to partitioning an image into different regions that are homogeneous or similar in some image characteristics. It is usually the first task of any image analysis process module and thus, subsequent tasks rely strongly on the quality of segmentation. Here a seeded region growing and merging algorithm was created to segment grey scale

and colour images. The approach starts with a set of seed pixels and from these grows regions by appending to each seed pixel those neighboring pixels that satisfy a certain predicate. Small regions of far away values were merged to neighboring regions while regions of similar value were also merged. Homogeneity functions are introduced for both grey scale and color images.

remarkable improvement of processing time. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing its region-based coding results with those of the morphological watershed-based segmentation method and the split-and-merge algorithm. The experiments results showed that region-based coding using the proposed algorithm yields PSNR improvement of about 1.5 dB over the morphological

Ahmad Fadzil Mohd Han, Umi Kalthum

Ngah, Venkatachalam'Lim Eng Eng [8] Discuss about Processing of Abdominal Ultrasound Images Using Seed based Region Growing Method. They are many diseases relating to abdomen. Patients suffering by abdominal diseases will be experiencing chronic or acute abdominal pain or suspects of an abdominal mass. Abdomen has two major ports: liver and gall bladder. Gallbladder and liver diseases are very common in all over the globe. An abdominal ultrasound image is a

watershed-based method. Especially, the total time elapsed to segment an image using the proposed method is reduced about 116 and 113 compared with those of the watershed-based segmentation and the split-and-merge methods, respectively.

3. ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

3.1 ANALYSIS
The purpose of analysis phase in the project

useful way of examining internal organs, including the development is to find out what services the system liver, gallbladder, spleen and kidneys. In general raw should provide, the required performance of the system,
i

ultrasound images contain lot of imbedded noises. So application domain, and so on. Analysis is an important digital processing can improve the quality of raw process. The acceptance of the system depends on how ultrasound images. In this work a software tool called well it provides expected functionality and meets the Ultrasound Processing Tool (UPT) has been developed requirements that were defined in the analysis phase. by employing the histogram equalization and region growing approach to give a clearer view of the affected The analysis phase mainly focuses on determining which technique or which algorithms are suitable for solving given problem efficiently. The Tien Dzung Nguyen, Viet Dzung Nguyen, Thuan Duong Ba Hong, Nam Chul Kim [9] Discuss about Fast segmentation based on a hybrid of clustering and morphological approaches. The clustering is to partition an input image into a number of clusters such that the gray levels within each cluster are similar. The clustered image is further processed by using morphological segmentation approach, in which a existing systems successfully detect the edges or segment the tumour. But, the two parameters, namely seed point and threshold value are determined manually by the user. These are done on a trial and error basis and must be repeated until satisfactory results are obtained from the process. But it is highly subjective to the user. This project mainly focuses on calculating these two parameters and segments the tumour automatically.

regions in the abdomen.

seeded region growing however plays a role of the decision tool instead of a watershed algorithm for a
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For determining the threshold value, the data mining technique like clustering is used . M any existing s"stems use clustering algorithm, mainly k-means clustering algorithm for classifying set of clusters. But this k-means clustering algorithm did not always produce good performance due to centre redundancy and trapped centre at local minima problem. To overcome this problem , in this project Moving K-means algorithm is used to find the threshold value. The automatic image segmentation is one of the

to segment the tumor. The graphical user interface is needed to help the user to interact with the application

3.2 DESIGN
In the design phase the architecture is established. This phase starts with the requirement document and maps the requirements into architecture. The architecture defines the components, their interfaces and behaviors. The deliverable design document is the architecture. The design document describes a complete plan to implement the

most difficult tasks in image processing . Many edge requirements. The figure 3.1 shows class diagram for detection techniques are used to detect the tumor edges. automatic region growing method for segmentation of The main techniques are threshold technique , boundary tumor on mammogram image. based methods and region based methods. Threshold technique uses only gray level information. They
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neglect all the spatial information of the image and do not manage well with noise or blurring at boundaries which g enerally encountered in ultrasound images. Boundary based methods use the pixel values that varies rapidly at the boundary between adjacent regions . in this method the edge pixels are identified
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and then these pixels are modified to produce closed curves . But to convert the edge pixels into close boundary is difficult for the ultrasound image segmentation Region based segmentation is based on the principle that neighboring pixels within the one region have similar value . Split and merge algorithm is best known region based category for the segmentation. In this project , the region growing segmentation
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technique is used . Because it has advantages like stability with respective noise and edges founded are thin and connected . Modifications are made to the region growing algorithm to find the seed point automatically . This project mainly involves two stages. The proposed region growing algorithm involves In the first stage, clustering algorithm is applied to the two stages. in the first stage, clustering algorithm is image to find the threshold value . This threshold value applied to the image to find the threshold value. The will be used in the modified region growing algorithm number of clusters depends on the number of region to Figure 3.1 class diagram

4. PROPOSED APPROACH

a4

Step 7: Compare each neighbor pixel with the initial seed pixel. Add a pixel to a region if it qualified for the region through either one of the two conditions listed below

5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The software used for the implementation of the above method is Mat lab. It can be run on any Windows Operating system, with a minimum 512MB of RAM and 680MB of free disk space.
Here also implemented a GUI (Graphical User Interface ) for display output images . This GUI work with mat lab GUIDE and call functions and other GUI components . Mainly 3 buttons and 3 image display components were used. The buttons are Get Image, K Means Clustering and Segmentation. When click I button , it display all original mammogram image

(a) If the gradient of the neighbor pixel is less

a

than 95% of the equalized histogram and its grey level value is more than or equal

to the preselected threshold, b.

(b) If the gradient of the neighbor pixel is more than or equal to 95% of the equalized histogram and the grey level of the pixel is not more than or equal to one standard deviation away from the region mean.

names. Here I selected patientl image and it displayed on User Interface. When click button 2, it shows clustered image of original mammogram image and when click 3rd button, it shows segmented tumor image for original mammogram image.

Step 8: Set the neighbor pixel, which is added to the region, as the new seed location. Step 9: Repeat Steps (6) to (8) until the region cannot be grown or all the pixels have been considered.
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Step 10: Change the grey level of the pixel that cannot a be grown with the value of O or 255.
Auto iiatic Peon Cr:win j Method for S .c,n e^tafion of T umour on Mommog^am Image

Step I l: Set next pixel with grey level more than a as r .o^ the new initial seed location, po(x, y) if the pixel is not been grown yet. Repeat Steps (6) to (10) until all the pixels of the image have been considered.

4.3 GUI
For display the results user interface was developed here. For developing User Interface GUI Components like buttons and image display components was used. The outputs of each algorithm showed on user interface.

Fig I : GUI for This paper

The figures 2, 3 show automatic region growing method and its propose algorithm outputs. Here Fig2 (a) and Fig3 (a) shows Original Mammogram Images. Fig2(b) and Fig3(b) are outputs for K Means Clustering algorithm for given original mammogram images and Fig2(c)and Fig3(c) shows segmented tumor images by proposed region growing algorithm.

0 0 0

be segmented on the image. In the second stage, this threshold value will be used in the Region Growing algorithm. Modifications are made to the conventional Region Growing algorithm where the seed point and threshold values are automatically determined. The block diagram for automatic region growing method for segmentation of tumor on mammogram image is shown in figure 4.1.

a pixel to be clustered and C is the j-th cluster (centre) i (x = 1, 2, ....NI , y = 1, 2, ..., N and j =1, 2, _.., n). The moving K-means clustering alggorithm finds the threshold value . This algorithm is implemented as:

Step 1: Start
Step 2: Initialize the cluster centers and a , and set a =
(1 u

a= a (where a is a small constant value, 0

h
U 0

Original Image

< a <1 /3nd should be chosen to be inversely

0

proportional to the number of centers).

I
Moving K-means Clustering Al gorithm
v

Step 3: Assign all pixels to the nearest cluster and calculate the centre positions using
1

Threshold Value

C = - ^y eC > x E c p(x, y) ............ (I)

1

J J

Where j = 1, 2... n Modified Region Growing Algorithm y=1, 2...N x=1,2...1\1

1 Segmented Tumor Image

Step 4: Check the fitness of each cluster using equation:

f(C)= ^y^X(^ p(x,y) - C I)2 ......(2) Figure 4.1 Block Diagram for automatic region growing method for segmentation of tumor on mammogram image Step 5: Find C and C, the cluster that has the smallest .s i and the largest value off ().

4.1 Moving K means Cluster Algorithm

The clustering algorithm is implemented on the mammogram image to automatically find the threshold . value for classifying two regions of clusters, i.e. the object of interest (tumor) and the background.

Step 6: Iff(C) < a s^ a

f(C^,

(i) Assign the members (pixels) of C to C if 1 P(x,y) < C , Where x,y E C ,and leave i r the rest of the members (pixels) to C. i ( i) Recalculate the positions of C and C

Consider an image with MxN pixels ( where hI and N are number of row and column of the image respectively) to be clustered into n clusters . Let p(x,y) is

according to:

C = Il (n )^yEc LIxEC p(x, y) .......... (3) .^^ s S S

Fig 2(a): Original Image Fig 3(a): Original Image

I"

Fig 2(b ): Clustered Image D

Fig 3(c): Segmented image

6. CONCLUSION
The aim of this work is to develop an automatic algorithm for segmentation of tumor on mammogram image which is unique challenge in mammogram image segmentation . The above result shows that our algorithm is one of the best automatic methods of segmenting tumor on mammogram images. The proposed method automatically determines the seed point and threshold value. The results obtained are favorable as the proposed Region Growing algorithm provides more meaningful images. The region of tumor is successfully detected . The size and shape of tumor region has also been preserved.

[7] N. Ikonomakis, K.N. Plataniotis , M. Zervakis, A.N. Venetsanopoulos , Region growing and region

merging image segmentation , IEEE Transactions

on Medical Imaging , Vol 13, April 1997,pp 82-87.

[8J

Ahmad Fadzil Mohd Han , Umi Kaithum Ngah, Venkatachalam ' Lim Eng Eng , Processing of

Abdominal Ultrasound Images Using Seed based Region Growing Method , IEEE Transactions, Vol 33, May 2004,pp 52-60.

[9J

Tien Dzung Nguyen, Viet Dzung Nguyen, Thuan Duong Ba Hong, Nam Chul Kim , Fast segmentation based on a hybrid of clustering and morphological approaches , IEEE Transactions, Vol

7. REFERENCES
[1] Reifael C. Gonzalez and Richard E. Woods,"Digital Image Processing' Pearson Edition, 2002. [2] B Chanda, D Dutta Majumder, "Digital Image Processing and Analysis", Prentice Hall, 1st Edition 2004. [3] Edward A Sickles, Mammographic Features of Early Breast Cancer , the annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society, Las Vegas, April

23 , June 2008, pp 315-319.

[I0] w'vw.wikipedia.org

1984.
[4] P K sinha and Q H hong , An Improved Median Filter., IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging,

Vol. 9, Sep 1990, pp 51-54. [5] N Otsu , A Threshold Selection Method from GrayLevel Histograms, IEEE Transactions on systems, Vol.l, Jan 1979, pp 149-151.
[6] Rolf Adams and Bischof L, Seeded region growing , IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol 16(6):641-647,Oct 1994. pp 34-38.