Benign-malignant mass classification in mammogram using edge weighted local texture features

Abstract

This paper introduces novel Discriminative Robust Local Binary Pattern (DRLBP) and Discriminative Robust Local Ternary Pattern (DRLTP) for the classification of mammographic masses as benign or malignant. Mass is one of the common, however, challenging evidence of breast cancer in mammography and diagnosis of masses is a difficult task. Since DRLBP and DRLTP overcome the drawbacks of Local Binary Pattern (LBP) and Local Ternary Pattern (LTP) by discriminating a brighter object against the dark background and vice-versa, in addition to the preservation of the edge information along with the texture information, several edge-preserving texture features are extracted, in this study, from DRLBP and DRLTP. Finally, a Fisher Linear Discriminant Analysis method is incorporated with discriminating features, selected by stepwise logistic regression method, for the classification of benign and malignant masses. The performance characteristics of DRLBP and DRLTP features are evaluated using a ten-fold cross-validation technique with 58 masses from the mini-MIAS database, and the best result is observed with DRLBP having an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.982.