PARABOLIC MODELING AND CLASSIFICATION OF BREAST TUMORS

Abstract

Discrimination between malignant tumors and benign masses in mammograms can be difficult because of the diversity of tumor shape. In order to facilitate this discrimination, we propose a method of shape analysis based only on characterization of boundaries of tumors via parabolic modeling. The method relies on the observation that most benign masses possess smooth or macro-lobulated contours, while most malignant tumors have complex contours with spiculations, concavities, and micro-lobulations. The contours used in this work were drawn on digitized mammograms by an expert radiologist (JELD). Classification of 54 tumors as benign or malignant was achieved with an accuracy of 76 percent.