Abstract
In this work, the authors present an effective denoising method to attempt reducing the noise in mammographic images. The method is based on using hierarchical correlation of the coefficients of discrete stationary wavelet transforms. The features of the proposed technique include iterative use of undecimated multi-directional wavelet transforms at adjacent scales. To validate the proposed method, computer simulations were conducted, followed by its applications to clinical mammograms. Mutual information originating from information theory was used as an evaluation measure for selection of an optimal wavelet basis function. We examined the performance of the proposed method by comparing it with the conventional undecimated discrete wavelet transform (UDWT) method in terms of processing time-consuming and image quality. Our results showed that with the use of the proposed method the computation time can be reduced to approximately 1/10 of the conventional UDWT method consumed. The results of visual assessment indicated that the images processed with the proposed UDWT method showed statistically significant superior image quality over those processed with the conventional UDWT method. Our research results demonstrate the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Landis SH, Murray T, Bolden S, et al: Cancer statistics. CA Cancer J Clin 48(1): 6–29, 1998
American Cancer Society: Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2009–2010. American Cancer Society. Atlanta, American Cancer Society, Inc: 1–36, 2009
Adel M, Zuwala D, Rasigni M, et al: Filtering noise on mammographic phantom images using local contrast modification functions. Image Vision Comput 26(9): 1219-1229, 2008
Sadaf A, Crystal P, Scaranelo A, et al: Performance of computer-aided detection applied to full-field digital mammography in detection of breast cancers. Eur J Radiol 77(3): 457-461, 2011
Tabar L, Yen MF, Vitak B, et al: Mammography service screening and mortality in breast cancer patients: 20 years follow-up before and after introduction of screening. Lancet 361(9367): 1405-1410, 2003
Dromain C, Thibault F, Muller S, et al: Dual-energy contrast-enhanced digital mammography: initial clinical results. Eur Radiol 21(3): 565-574, 2011
Wei J, Chan HP, Zhou C, et al: Computer-aided detection of breast masses: Four-view strategy for screen mammography. Med Phys 38(4): 1867-1876, 2011
Morton MJ, Whaley DH, Brandt KR, et al: Screening mammograms: Interpretation with computer-aided detection- prospective evaluation. Radiology 239(5): 375-383, 2006
Fenton JJ, Taplin SH, Carney PA, et al: Influence of computer-aided detection of performance of screen mammography. N Engl J Med 356(14): 1399-1409, 2007
Wang X, Li L, Xu W, et al: Improving performance of computer-aided detection of masses by incorporating bilateral mammographic density asymmetry: an assessment. Acad Radiol 19(3): 303-310, 2012
Samulski M, Hupse R, Boetes C, et al: Using computer-aided detection in mammography as a decision support. Eur Radiol 20(10): 2323-2330, 2010
Tourassi GD, Ike III R, Singh S, et al: Evaluating the effect of image preprocessing on an information-theoretic CAD system in mammography. Acad Radiol 15(5): 626-634, 2008
Mencattini A, Salmeri M, Rabottino G, et al: Metrological characterization of a CADx system for the classification of breast masses in mammograms. IEEE Trans on Instr and Meas 59: 2792-2799, 2010
Mencattini A, Salmeri M: Metrological assessment of a CAD system for the early diagnosis of breast cancer in digital mammography. In: Mammography –Recent Advances. InTech, Mar. 2012, pp. 293–320
Baydush AH, Catarious DM, Lo JY, et al: Incorporation of a Laguerre-Gauss channelized hotelling observer for false-positive reduction in a mammographic mass CAD system. J Digit Imaging 20:196-202, 2007
Camilus KS, Govindan VK, Sathidevi PS: Computer-aided identification of the pectoral muscle in digitized mammograms. J Digit Imaging 23: 562-580, 2010
Matheus BRN, Schiabel H: Online mammographic images database for development and comparison of CAD schemes. J Digit Imaging 24: 500-506, 2011
Bozek J, Mustra M, Delac K, et al: A survey of image processing algorithms in digital mammography. Studies in computational intelligence 231: 631-657, 2009
Zanca F, Jacobs J, Ongeval CV, et al: Evaluation of clinical image processing algorithms used in digital mammography. Med Phys 36(3): 765-775, 2009
Scharcanski J, Jung CR: Denoising and enhancing digital mammographic images for visual screening. Comput Med Imaging Graphics 30(4): 243-254, 2006
Zhang X, Xie H: Mammograms enhancement and denoising using generalized Gaussian mixture model in nonsubsampled contourlet transform domain. Journal of Multimedia 4(6): 389-396, 2009
Jung CR, Scharcanski T: Wavelet transform approach to adaptive image denoising and enhancement. J Electron Imaging 13(2): 278–285, 2004
Kappadath SC, Shaw CC: Dual-energy digital mammography for calcification imaging: noise reduction techniques. Phys Med Biol 53(19): 5421–5443, 2008
Bouwman R, Young K, Lazzari B, et al: An alternative method for noise analysis using pixel variance as part of quality control procedures on digital mammography systems. Phys Med Biol 54(22): 6809–6822, 2009
Mayo P, Rodenas F, Verdu G: Comparing methods to denoise mammographic images. Proc of the 26th Annual Intl Conference of the Engineering on medicine and Biology Society. 1: 247–250, 2004
McLoughlin KJ, Bones PJ, Karssemeijer N: Noise equalization for detection of microcalcification clusters in direct digital mammogram images. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 23(3):313-320, 2004
Starck JL, Candes EJ, Donoho DL: The curvelet transform for image denoising. IEEE Trans Image Process 11(6): 670-684, 2002
Adel M, Zuwala D, Rasigni M, et al: Noise reduction on mammographic phantom images. Electronic Letters on Computer Vision and Image Analysis 5(4): 64-74, 2006
Mencattini M, Salmeri M, Lojacono R, et al: Mammographic images enhancement and denoising for breast cancer detection using dyadic wavelet processing. IEEE Trans Instrum Meas 57(7): 1422-1430, 2008
Xu Y, Weaver JB, Healy DM, et al: Wavelet transform domain filters: A spatially selective noise filtration technique. IEEE Trans. Image Process 3(6): 747-758, 1994
Fodor IK, Kamath C: Denoising through wavelet shrinkage: an empirical study, J Electron Imaging 12 (1): 151-160, 2003
Sampat MP, Whitman GJ, Bovic AC, et al: Comparison of algorithms to enhance spicules of speculated masses on mammography. J Digit Imaging 21: 9-17, 2008
Romualdo LCS, Vieira MAC, Schiabel H, et al: Mammographic imaging denoising and enhancement using the anscombe transformation, adaptive wiener filtering, and the modulation transfer function. J Digit Imaging (on line first) (doi:10.1007/s10278-012-9507-1)
Ferreira CBR, Borges DL: Analysis of mammogram classification using a wavelet transform decomposition. Pattern Recognition Letters 24(7): 973-982, 2003
Cho D, Bui TD, Chen G: Image denoising based on wavelet shrinkage using neighbor and level dependency. Int J Wavelets Multiresolut Inf Process 7: 299-311, 2009
Gyaourove A, Kamath C, Fodor IK: Undecimated wavelet transforms for image de-noising. Report Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 12: 1-12, 2002.
Fowler JE: The redundant discrete wavelet transform and additive noise. IEEE Signal Processing Letters 12(9): 629-632, 2005
Starck JL, Fadili J, Murtagh F: The undecimated wavelet decomposition and its reconstruction. IEEE Trans Image Process 16(2): 297-309, 2007
Wang XY, Yang HY, Fu ZK: A new wavelet-based image denoising using undecimated discrete wavelet transform and least square support vector machine. Expert Systems with Applications 37(10): 7040-7049, 2010
Mencattini A, Salmeri M, Caselli F, et al: Subband variance computation of homoscedastic additive noise in discrete dyadic wavelet transform. Int J Wavelets Multiresolut Inf Process 6: 895-906, 2008
Mencattini A, Rabottino G, Salmeri M, et al: Denoising and enhancement of mammographic images under the assumption of heteroscedastic additive noise by an optimal subband thresholding. Int J Wavelets Multiresolut Inf Process 8: 713-741, 2010
Zhao P, Shang Z, Zhao C: Image denoising based on Gaussian and non-gaussian assumption. Int J Wavelets Multiresolut Inf Process 10: 1250014 (11 pages), 2012
Huang Z, Fang B, He X, et al: Image denoising based on the dyadic wavelet transform and improved threshold. Int J Wavelets Multiresolut Inf Process 7: 269-380, 2009
Liu TT, Fraser-Smith AC: Detection of transient in 1/f noise with the undecimated discrete wavelet transform. IEEE Trans Signal Processing 48(5): 1458-1462, 2000
Addison PS: The illustrated wavelet transform handbook. London: IOP, 2002
Donoho D, Johnstone I: Ideal spatial adaptation by wavelet shrinkage. Biometrika 81(3): 425-455, 1994
Coifman RR, Donoho DL: Translation invariant de-noising. Lecture Notes in Statistics 103: 125-150, 1995
Matsuyama E, Tsai DY, Lee Y: Mutual information-based evaluation of image quality with its preliminary application to assessment of medical imaging systems. J Electron Imaging 18(3): 033011, 1-11, 2009
Matsuyama E, Tsai DY, Lee Y, et al: Using mutual information to evaluate performance of medical imaging systems. Health 2(4): 279-285, 2010
Singh BN, Tiwari AK: Optimal selection of wavelet basis function applied to ECG signal denoising. Digit Signal Process 16(3): 257-287, 2006
Tsai DY, Lee Y, Matsuyama E: Information entropy measure for evaluation of image quality. J Digit Imaging 21(3 ):338-347, 2008
Japanese Society of Medical Imaging Technology. Available at: http://www.jamit.jp/cad-committe/caddbinfo. Accessed 11January 2012
Scheffe H: The Analysis of variance. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1959
Canavos GC, Koutrouvelis JA: An Introduction to the design & analysis of experiments. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008 (eBook)
Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (23602004) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS). The authors also would like to thank the observers for their participation in visual evaluation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Matsuyama, E., Tsai, DY., Lee, Y. et al. A Modified Undecimated Discrete Wavelet Transform Based Approach to Mammographic Image Denoising. J Digit Imaging 26, 748–758 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-012-9555-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-012-9555-6