Compression of Medical Images Using Wavelet Transform and Metaheuristic Algorithm for Telemedicine Applications

Abstract

Medical image compression becomes necessary to efficiently handle huge number of medical images for storage and transmission purposes. Wavelet transform is one of the popular techniques widely used for medical image compression. However, these methods have some limitations like discontinuity which occurs when reducing image size employing thresholding method. To overcome this, optimization method is considered with the available compression methods. In this paper, a method is proposed for efficient compression of medical images based on integer wavelet transform and modified grasshopper optimization algorithm. Medical images are pre-processed using hybrid median filter to discard noise and then decomposed using integer wavelet transform. The proposed method employed modified grasshopper optimization algorithm to select the optimal coefficients for efficient compression and decompression. Four different imaging techniques, particularly magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, ultrasound, and X-ray, were used in a series of tests. The suggested method's compressing performance is proven by comparing it to well-known approaches in terms of mean square error, peak signal to noise ratio, and mean structural similarity index at various compression ratios. The findings showed that the proposed approach provided effective compression with high decompression image quality.