Comparison of Filtering Method to Overcome Noise on Thyroid
Ultrasonography Images
Ibnu Masngut1, Indah Soesanti2, Hanung Adi Nugroho 3
Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
1
ibnu.masngut@mail.ugm.ac.id, 2indahsoesanti@ugm.ac.id, 3adinugroho@ugm.ac.id
Abstract— Thyroid nodules are abnormal growth of thyroid
cells that form thyroid mass. Radiology modality that usually
used to diagnose thyroid nodules is ultrasonography (USG).
USG have some disadvantages, such as subjective
interpretation and operator dependent. To resolve that
problem, a computerization are needed. The purpose of this
study is to analyze the good filtering method for detecting
thyroid nodule. This study uses 30 thyroid ultrasound images
for comparing some filtering method. Mean, Median,
Adaptive Median, and SRBF are used to analyze which the
best method for removing noise in ultrasound images. The
result show that adaptive median filtering has better
performance than other filtering method with average value
of MSE and PSNR at 25.586 dB and 35.072.
Keywords—thyroid; filtering method, mean, median,
adaptive median, SRBF.
I. INTRODUCTION
Thyroid cancer is an abnormal growth of thyroid cells
that is a lump in the thyroid gland [1]. Thyroid cancer is
one type of malignant cancer that is currently increasing the
number of cases. Based on data obtained from the
Indonesian Ministry of Health in 2015, thyroid cancer
ranked 9th from other malignancies of cancer [2].
Most of thyroid cancers are identified using
ultrasonography. The results of the examination using
ultrasonography were analyzed to determine the degree of
malignancy of the cancer that emerged [3]. This process is
very subjective because the results of analysis is done by
analyzing the image of ultrasonography visually. Operators
with longer work experience will result in better diagnostic
analysis [4]. Therefore, it takes a computerized system that
can assist doctors in making diagnosis decision [5]. Images
are often damaged by many visible or invisible sounds
when collected, obtained, encoded and sent. Noise
seriously damages the quality of images received and can
cause major problems for further image processing [6]
Breast cancer is one of the most common types of
cancer in women and is also the leading cause of death of
women in the world. Ultrasonography (USG) is a common
modality used as a diagnostic tool because of its low cost
and portability. This is used to detect early breast cancer.
In USG, the degradation of the edge character is unclear or
the speckle noise often occurs at the time of acquisition. It
is important to perform an effective process to reduce the
speckle noise [7].
One of the imaging modalities for early detection of
breast cancer is ultrasonography (USG). Detection is based
on the identification of the lesion. Radiologists still
manually perform early detection of lesions. In this study,
the proposed method for detecting automatic lesions using
30 images consisted of 20 images of benign lesions and 10
images of malignant lesions. In the pre-processing stage,
adaptive median filters are applied and continued by
adaptive thresholding method in the segmentation process.
The final stage uses a morphological operation. The results
showed that the proposed method successfully achieved
accuracy of 95.19%, sensitivity 84.13% and specificity
96.2%. These results suggest that the system can be used to
help experts or operators of radiology teams be more
objective in early detection of breast cancer[8] Filtering is
part of the computerized system process. Filtering is often
called pre-processing. In accordance with the term this
process aims to handle the noise contained in the image as
well as to improve image quality.
This study was designed to compare several filtering
methods such as mean, median, adaptive median, and
SRBF when applied to overcome noise of marker and label
and the speckle noise in the thyroid ultrasonography
images. This paper is structured with the following details:
Part II is a methodology section that discusses some of the
methods used in this study. Part III is an explanation of the
results of the filtering process as well as the analysis of the
results of the filtering process undertaken. Section IV is
part of the conclusion.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Mean Filtering
Mean filtering is a simple smoothing image method,
intuitive and easy to implement, which reduces the amount
of intensity variation between one pixel and the next pixel.
This is often used to reduce the noise on the image The
average filtration idea is just to replace each pixel value in
the image with the average value of its neighbor, including
itself. This has the effect of eliminating unrepresentative
pixel values from the surrounding environment. Average
filtration is usually considered a convolution filter. Like
other convolution, it is based around the kernel, which
represents the shape and size of the environment to be
sampled when calculating the mean. This process often
uses a 3x3 square kernel. The simplest algorithm is the
mean filtering. Mean filtering is a linear filter that uses a
mask above each pixel on the signal. Each pixel component
that falls beneath the mask is averaged to form a single point or signal point assessment, and easy to make
pixel. This new pixel is used to replace pixels in the mistakes[6]
observed signal. Average filters are bad in maintaining the
edges in the image.
D. Speckle Reducing Bilateral Filtering
Mean filtering (𝑥1 , … … 𝑥𝑁 ) = ∑𝑁 Speckle reducing bilateral filtering (SRBF) is
𝑖=1 𝑥1 (1)
particularly suitable for removing labels and images. SRBF
works by following the speckle features it finds and then
B. Median Filtering calculates the image statistical values as formulated in (1)
The median filter has a strong ability to remove noise, and (2).
also called salt and pepper noise that appears as a white and
black dot on the image, the desired pixel value and its
surroundings are instructed to determine the median value
of their pixels. The media value is used to replace the
desired pixel value. Research conducted by Pablo Rivas-
Perea on retinoblastoma detection using wavelet transform
also used the median filtering technique. Median filters are
widely used in image processing because the median
filtering can retain edges and remove noise spots quite well. 𝑆(𝑝) = 𝛤 −1 (𝑝) ∫ 𝐼(£)𝑐(£, 𝑝)ℎ(𝐼£), 𝐼))𝑑£ (3)
It can be illustrated by an M x N input of the image I (n_1,
n_2) where n_1 ∈ {0,1, ..., M-1} and n_2 ∈ {0,1, ..., M-1} With p factor normalization
can be filtered by considering p x q where 1 ≤ p << M and
1 ≤ q << N. Each pixel is filtered and the original pixel is 𝛤(𝑝) = ∫ 𝑐(£, 𝑝)ℎ(𝐼, £)𝐼(𝑝))𝑑£ (4)
replaced with the median filter result.
In his research, Pablo proposed a square filter whose I is the value of the actual image, S is the value of the
size depends on the size of the squared image. The filtered image, p is the component in the picture and £
proposed p x p filter can be used to obtain the following represents the integrated variable of the coordinate
sizes[9]: component.
2
𝑝 = [√max(𝑀, 𝑁)] (2) ||𝑝−£||
𝑐(£, 𝑝) = 𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( ) (5)
2𝜎𝑐2

After estimating the subsequent filter sizes, p x p median (𝐼(𝑝))−𝐼(£))2

filters for three (i.e. RGB) channels of the original input ℎ(𝐼(£), 𝐼(𝑝)) = 𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( ) (6)
2𝜎ℎ2
image are applied. Then, the result will appear in the
equalization of the histogram. σ_c is the standard deviation value of Gaussian on the
C. Adaptive Median Filtering spatial basis and σ_h is the standard deviation value of the
Adaptive median filtering arithmetic can resize filter random domain[10]
windows based on noise density. And it can take different
methods for noise points and signal points. Scanning
average until noise and leave the signal unchanged. First,
let f (x, y) be the gray value from the image signal point,
(x, y), W (x, y) is the current gray window, fmax, fmed, f_min
is the maximum gray, median, minimum W (x, y).
Adaptive filter arithmetic process is as follows:

a. If, fmin < fmed < fmax go to step 2, otherwise aggrandize the
size of the W (x, y) window, if W (x, y) ≤, W max, then
proceed to step 1, if not export f (x, y).
b. If fmin < f (x, y) < fmax then export f (x, y), if not exported
fmed.

The adaptive filter structure ensures that most impulse

noise is detected even at high noise levels if the window
size is large enough. Note that the noise candidate is
replaced by the median, while the remaining pixels are left
unchanged. We can easily find it, if the middle pixel of the
window is maximal or minimum, then we assume it is the
noise point, but there are some noise points that are not
maximal or minimum, so we are not able to make noise
 III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION ultrasound image adapative median filtering method has
better performance compared to other filtering method.
This research uses 30 data in the form of thyroid
ultrasonography image which will be applied to each
method to analyze which method is best. The steps
undertaken in this study are described in Figure 1. In the
diagram it is explained that the first step in this research is
cropping the data according to the region of interest (RoI)
of the thyroid nodule. Mean filtering Median filtering
After obtaining all RoI data, the next step is to
implement each data into the method of mean, median,
adaptive median, SRBF. After the results of each method
obtained then analyzed by calculating average mean square Citra asli
error (MSE) and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR). The
smallest MSE results and the largest PSNR results show the
best method among other methods. SRBF
Adaptive Median
Figure 2. The result of method implementation

Figure 2 is an example of one sample of 30 samples.

From 30 samples searched average value for MSE and
PNSR in each method, including method of Mean, Median,
Adaptive Median, and SRBF. As shown in Table I.

Table I. Comparison of MSE and PSNR in each sample

Figure 1. Block diagram of research

The results of each implementation method can be

seen in Figure 2. Based on the results in Figure 2 it appears
that adaptive median filtering has a good performance, From the data above then obtained the value of MSE
especially in cleaning the image of markers and labels. In and PNSR as follows:
addition, the method can overcome the speckle noise with
a lighter blur effect compared to other methods. Table II. Comparison of MSE and PNSR calculations
The results of the calculation of MSE and PSNR can
be seen in Table 1. Based on the results obtained then Metode
Index
carried out the analysis. The smallest MSE value and the Mean Median Adaptive Median SRBF
largest PSNR show best filtering results. The adaptive MSE 65,174 65,723 25,586 20,287
median filtering method has the lowest MSE value and the PSNR 20,796 20,043 35,072 33,858
highest PSNR value. So in case of improvement of thyroid
 IV. CONCLUSION
Based on simulation result which have been done on
method mean, median, adaptive median, and SRBF, it can
be concluded that adaptive median filtering method has
good performance compared to other method with MSE
result 25,586 dB and PSNR result 35,072. These results
indicate that the incorporation of adaptive median filtering
method is able to overcome the noise of markers and labels
contained in thyroid ultrasonography image.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the members of the
team of biomedical researchers in Electrical and
Informatics Engineering Department of Gadjah Mada
University (UGM) to make this research achieved.

REFERENCES
[1] C. N. . Mary Jo Welker, M.D., and Diane Orlov, M.S.,
“Thyroid Nodules,” Am. Fam. Physician, vol. 67, no. 3, pp.
559–566, 2003.
[2] H. A. Nugroho, E. L. Frannita, A. Nugroho, Zulfanahri, I.
Ardiyanto, and L. Choridah, “Classification of thyroid
nodules based on analysis of margin characteristic,” in 2017
International Conference on Computer, Control,
Informatics and its Applications (IC3INA), 2017, pp. 47–51.
[3] K. Gul, R. Ersoy, and A. Dirikoc, “Ultrasonographic
evaluation of thyroid nodules : comparison of
ultrasonographic , cytological , and histopathological
findings,” Endocr. Soc., vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 464–472, 2009.
[4] D. E. Maroulis, M. A. Savelonas, S. A. Karkanis, D. K.
Iakovidis, and N. Dimitropoulos, “Computer-Aided Thyroid
Nodule Detection in Ultrasound Images,” in 18th IEEE
Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems
(CBMS’05), 2005, pp. 3–8.
[5] D. Koundal, S. Gupta, and S. Singh, “Computer-Aided
Diagnosis of Thyroid Nodule : A Review,” Int. J. Comput.
Sci. Eng. Surv. IJCSES, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 67–83, 2012.
[6] Y. Ma and J. Li, “A novel method based on adaptive median
filtering and wavelet transform in noise images,” in 2011
IEEE 3rd International Conference on Communication
Software and Networks, 2011, pp. 626–629.
[7] H. A. Nugroho, Y. Triyani, M. Rahmawaty, I. Ardiyanto,
and L. Choridah, “Performance analysis of filtering
techniques for speckle reduction on breast ultrasound
images,” in 2016 International Electronics Symposium
(IES), 2016, pp. 450–454.
[8] M. Sahar, H. A. Nugroho, Tianur, I. Ardiyanto, and L.
Choridah, “Automated detection of breast cancer lesions
using adaptive thresholding and morphological operation,”
in 2016 International Conference on Information
Technology Systems and Innovation (ICITSI), 2016, pp. 1–
4.
[9] P. Rivas-Perea, R. Henning, B. Shaw, and G. Hamerly,
“Finding the smallest circle containing the iris in the
denoised wavelet domain,” Proc. IEEE Southwest Symp.
Image Anal. Interpret., pp. 13–16, 2014.
[10] H. A. Nugroho, E. L. Frannita, A. Nugroho, Zulfanahri, I.
Ardiyanto, and L. Choridah, “Classification of thyroid
nodules based on analysis of margin characteristic,” in 2017
International Conference on Computer, Control,
Informatics and its Applications (IC3INA), 2017, pp. 47–51.