Accurate segmentation of the breast region from digitized mammograms

The segmentation of a digital mammogram into the breast region and the back ground is a necessary prerequisite in computer-assisted diagnosis of mammog rams. By the exclusion of the background region, the accuracy of the analys is is increased and the running-time is decreased. The algorithm which segm ents the breast region from the background should be fully automated and gi ve correct results for all kinds of digitized mammograms, including low-qua lity images. In this paper we present such an algorithm based on histogram thresholding, morphological filtering and contour modeling. Quantitative te st results indicate that the computed boundary follows the estimated bounda ry accurately. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.