Mini Mammographic Image Analysis Society Research Articles

Chimp Optimization Algorithm Influenced Type-2 Intuitionistic Fuzzy C-Means Clustering-Based Breast Cancer Detection System.

In recent years, breast cancer detection is an important area of concentration towards curative image dispensation and exploration. Detection of a disease at an early stage is an important factor in taking it to the next level of treatment. Accuracy plays an important role in the detection of disease. COA-T2FCM (Chimp Optimization Algorithm Based Type-2 Intuitionistic Fuzzy C-Means Clustering) is constructed for detection of such malignancy with the highest accuracy in this paper. The proposed detection process is designed with the combination of type-2 intuitionistic fuzzy c-means clustering in addition to oppositional function. In the type-2 intuitionistic fuzzy c-means clustering, the efficient cluster center can be preferred using the chimp optimization algorithm. Initially, the objective function of the type-2 intuitionistic fuzzy c-means clustering is considered. The chimp optimization algorithm is utilized to optimize the cluster center and fuzzifier in the clustering method. The projected technique is implemented, and in addition, performance metrics such as specificity, sensitivity, accuracy, Jaccard Similarity Index (JSI), and Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) are assessed. The projected technique is compared with the conventional technique such as fuzzy c means clustering and k mean clustering methods. The resulting method was also compared with existing methods to ensure the accuracy in the proposed method. The proposed algorithm is tested for its effectiveness on the mammogram images of the three different datasets collected from the Mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (Mini-MIAS), the Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM), and Inbreast. The accuracy and Jaccard index score are generally used to measure the similarity between the proposed output and the actual cancer affected regions from the image considered. On an average the proposed method achieved an accuracy of 97.29% and JSI of 95.

Breast Cancer Detection in Mammogram Images Using K-Means++ Clustering Based on Cuckoo Search Optimization.

Traditional breast cancer detection algorithms require manual extraction of features from mammogram images and professional medical knowledge. Still, the quality of mammogram images hampers this and extracting high-quality features, which can result in very long processing times. Therefore, this paper proposes a new K-means++ clustering based on Cuckoo Search Optimization (KM++CSO) for breast cancer detection. The pre-processing method is used to improve the proposed KM++CSO method more segmentation efficiently. Furthermore, the interpretability is further enhanced using mathematical morphology and OTSU's threshold. To this end, we tested the effectiveness of the KM++CSO methods on the mammogram image analysis society of the Mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (Mini-MIAS), the Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM), and the Breast Cancer Digital Repository (BCDR) dataset through cross-validation. We maximize the accuracy and Jaccard index score, which is a measure that indicates the similarity between detected cancer and their corresponding reference cancer regions. The experimental results showed that the detection method obtained an accuracy of 96.42% (Mini-MIAS), 95.49% (DDSM), and 96.92% (BCDR). On overage, the KM++CSO method obtained 96.27% accuracy for three publicly available datasets. In addition, the detection results provided the 91.05% Jaccard index score.

Two-Stage Feature Selection Method Created for 20 Neurons Artificial Neural Networks for Automatic Breast Cancer Detection

Breast cancer is a common deadly diseases in women. Initial recognition of breast cancer using mammogram images is a challenging task. Hence, this paper proposed a unique automatic diagnosis model for breast cancer. Initially, the mammogram images are preprocessed with a median filter and contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE). The pre-processed image is automatically segmented using the multilevel threshold method. Subsequently, statistical, texture, shape, and geometric features are extracted from the segmented image. So, the length of the feature vector is high, and it is important to identify optimum features. In this paper, the dimension of the feature vector is reduced by 2-stage feature selection methods. Initially, the feature vector is applied to the best first search method information gain (IG) with rank feature method, and then secondly, apply the Pearson correlation method (PCM). Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are used to increase the classification accuracy of a breast cancer diagnosis. In this model, the selection of appropriate neurons in a single hidden layer is used to avoid overfitting problems in an ANN model. Based on optimum feature selection, the appropriate number of neurons chosen in the hidden layer is 20, which was applied for the proposed IG+PCM+Boosted-ANN model. The proposed model is applied on 2 regular datasets mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (mini-MIAS) and Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM). The proposed model was superior to other exiting models and the model in this study achieves the accuracy of 99 and 98.80 % for mini-MIAS and DDSM datasets, respectively.

A Novel Fragile Zero-Watermarking Algorithm for Digital Medical Images

The wireless transmission of patients’ particulars and medical data to a specialised centre after an initial screening at a remote health facility may cause potential threats to patients’ data privacy and integrity. Although watermarking can be used to rectify such risks, it should not degrade the medical data, because any change in the data characteristics may lead to a false diagnosis. Hence, zero watermarking can be helpful in these circumstances. At the same time, the transmitted data must create a warning in case of tampering or a malicious attack. Thus, watermarking should be fragile in nature. Consequently, a novel hybrid approach using fragile zero watermarking is proposed in this study. Visual cryptography and chaotic randomness are major components of the proposed algorithm to avoid any breach of information through an illegitimate attempt. The proposed algorithm is evaluated using two datasets: the Digital Database for Screening Mammography and the Mini Mammographic Image Analysis Society database. In addition, a breast cancer detection system using a convolutional neural network is implemented to analyse the diagnosis in case of a malicious attack and after watermark insertion. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm is reliable for privacy protection and data authentication.

Hybrid-based bat optimization with fuzzy C-means algorithm for breast cancer analysis

Background: Breast cancer is one of the most frequent types of cancer among women and early identification can reduce the mortality rate drastically. Feature selection is one of the significant tasks in the breast cancer analysis process. Several types of feature selection algorithms have been implemented to select the most appropriate feature for breast cancer analysis. However, they have to take a longer time to converge, over-fitting problems and providing less accuracy. Hence, a hybrid bat optimization algorithm combined with chaotic maps and fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm (BSCFC) is proposed for feature selection. Aims and Objectives: An integrated optimized bat optimization algorithm combined with chaotic maps and fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm (BSCFC) is proposed to determine the relevant feature. Materials and Methods: Breast cancer mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society database (MIAS) dataset is used for analysis. Further, median filters are used for preprocessing, Region of Interest (ROI) was utilized for segmentation, gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), and texture analysis are utilized in the feature extraction process. A hybrid bat optimization algorithm combined with chaotic maps and fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm (BSCFC) is proposed for feature selection. K nearest neighbor (KNN) classifier is used for classification. Results: Performance of the proposed system is evaluated using standard measures and achieved the highest accuracy rate of (98.2%), specificity of (97.3%), and sensitivity of (98.3%) as compared to other relevant methods such as bat, chaotic bat, chaotic crow search, ant lion optimization, and chaotic ant lion optimization algorithm. Conclusion: The proposed BSCFC algorithm is designed to improve the performance of convergence speed and control balance between exploration and exploitation rate using five types of chaotic maps namely sinusoidal, sine, gauss, logistic, and tent maps. The results show that the BSCFC with sinusoidal maps can significantly boost the classification performance of the BSCFC algorithm in classifying the breast cancer images with reduced features, which in turn optimizes the radiologists' time for their interpretation.

Automated Classification of Breast Cancer Lesions for Digitised Mammograms via Computer-Aided Diagnosis System

Women with breast cancer have a high risk of death. Digitised mammograms can be used to detect the early stage of breast cancer. However, digitised mammograms suffer low contrast appearances that may lead to misdiagnosis. This paper proposes a Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system of automated classification of breast cancer lesions using a modified image processing technique of Fuzzy Anisotropic Diffusion Histogram Equalization Contrast Adaptive Limited (FADHECAL) incorporated with Multilevel Otsu Thresholding on digitised mammograms. Four main blocks were used in this CAD system, namely; (i) Pre-processing and Enhancement block; (ii) Segmentation block; (iii) Region of Interests (ROIs) Extraction block; and (iv) Classification block. The CAD system was tested on 30 digitised mammograms retrieved from the Mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) database with various degrees of severity and background tissues. The proposed CAD system showed a high accuracy of 96.67% for the detection of breast cancer lesions.

Improvement of image enhancement for mammogram images using Fuzzy Anisotropic Diffusion Histogram Equalisation Contrast Adaptive Limited (FADHECAL)

ABSTRACT Image enhancement techniques for digital mammograms can preserve the contrast to distinguish the diagnostic features such as masses and microcalcifications. However, mammogram images suffer low contrast and high image noise due to low exposure radiation used. As a result, the diagnostic features are difficult to detect and analyse by the radiologist. In this article, we propose a novel Fuzzy Anisotropic Diffusion Histogram Equalisation Contrast Adaptive Limited (FADHECAL) enhancement technique to reduce the noise of the mammogram images while preserving contrast and brightness. The FADHECAL technique also applies Fuzzy Clipped Inference System (FCIS) which automatically select clip-limit during the enhancement process. The mammogram images were retrieved from Mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) and Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM) from the University of South Florida database. The results have shown that FADHECAL has the most superior results among other selected enhancement techniques with 6.502 ± 1.855 of AMBE, 0.934 ± 0.034 of SSIM, 15.742 ± 1.217 of MAE, 26.843 ± 2.541 of PSNR, 0.969 ± 0.021 of UIQI and 1.151 ± 0.147 of RMSE values. This FADHECAL can be used as an ideal platform of image enhancement for mammogram images to detect the breast cancer lesions with better noise reduction and preserving the image details.

Multicriteria Evaluation of Deep Neural Networks for Semantic Segmentation of Mammographies

Breast segmentation plays a vital role in the automatic analysis of mammograms. Accurate segmentation of the breast region increments the probability of a correct diagnostic and minimizes computational cost. Traditionally, model-based approaches dominated the landscape for breast segmentation, but recent studies seem to benefit from using robust deep learning models for this task. In this work, we present an extensive evaluation of deep learning architectures for semantic segmentation of mammograms, including segmentation metrics, memory requirements, and average inference time. We used several combinations of two-stage segmentation architectures composed of a feature extraction net (VGG16 and ResNet50) and a segmentation net (FCN-8, U-Net, and PSPNet). The training examples were taken from the mini Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) database. Experimental results using the mini-MIAS database show that the best net scored a Dice similarity coefficient of 99.37% for breast boundary segmentation and 95.45% for pectoral muscle segmentation.

An enhancement of mammogram images for breast cancer classification using artificial neural networks

<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-12eaaa5f-7fff-c428-95bf-97a7381b2976"><span>Breast cancer is the most driving reason for death in women in both developed and developing nations. For the plan of effective classification of a system, the selection of features method must be used to decrease irregularity part in mammogram images. The proposed approach is used to crop the region of interests (ROIs) manually. Based on that number of features are extracted. In this proposed method a novel hybrid optimum feature selection (HOFS) method is used to find out the significant features to reach maximum accuracy for this classification. A number of selected features is applied to train the neural network. In this proposed method accessible informational index from the mini–mammographic image analysis society (MIAS) database was used. The classification of this mammogram database involved a neural networks classifier which attained an accuracy of 99.7% with a sensitivity of 99.5%, and specificity of 100% as the area under the curve (AUC) is 0.9975 and matthew’s correlation coefficient (MCC) represents a binary class value which reached the value of 0.9931. It can be useful in a computer-aided diagnosis system (CAD) framework to help the radiologist in analyzing breast cancer. Results achieved with the proposed method are better compared to recent work.</span></span></p>

Development of an intelligent CAD system for mass detection in mammographic images

Mammography is a very useful tool to diagnose breast cancer in early stages when it is easier to treat. There are two types of evidence that radiologists look for in a mammogram, calcifications and the existence of masses. In this study, an intelligent computer-aided diagnosis system is proposed for the detection of masses in mammographic images regardless of their nature. The proposed method uses a combination of extended maxima transformations, having different threshold values, in order to find suitable internal and external markers for a marker-based watershed segmentation. After segmentation, a two-stage classifier is used to distinguish the masses better from the healthy breast tissue. A feature vector based mainly on contrast and texture features is calculated and two alternative approaches, a Bayesian classifier and a support vector machine (SVM) with Gaussian kernel function, are implemented for further reduction of the false positive areas. The system was evaluated using the data from two online databases. Specifically, 73 mammographic images from the new curated breast imaging subset of digital database for screening mammography (CBIS-DDSM) database and all the mammographic images that contain masses from the mini-mammographic image analysis society (MIAS) database were used. The overall sensitivity, in both datasets, was near 80% when the Bayesian classifier was used and above 85% when the SVM was applied.

Generalized Multiscale RBF Networks and the DCT for Breast Cancer Detection

The use of the multiscale generalized radial basis function (MSRBF) neural networks for image feature extraction and medical image analysis and classification is proposed for the first time in this work. The MSRBF networks hold a simple and flexible architecture that has been successfully used in forecasting and model structure detection of input-output nonlinear systems. In this work instead, MSRBF networks are part of an integrated computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) framework for breast cancer detection, which holds three stages: an input-output model is obtained from the image, followed by a high-level image feature extraction from the model and a classification module aimed at predicting breast cancer. In the first stage, the image data is rendered into a multiple-input-single-output (MISO) system. In order to improve the characterisation, the nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous inputs (NARX) model is introduced to rearrange the available input-output data in a nonlinear way. The forward regression orthogonal least squares (FROLS) algorithm is then used to take advantage of the previous arrangement by solving the system as a model structure detection problem and finding the output layer weights of the NARX-MSRBF network. In the second stage, once the network model is available, the feature extraction takes place by stimulating the input to produce output signals to be compressed by the discrete cosine transform (DCT). In the third stage, we leverage the extracted features by using a clustering algorithm for classification to integrate a CAD system for breast cancer detection. To test the method performance, three different and well-known public image repositories were used: the mini-MIAS and the MMSD for mammography, and the BreaKHis for histopathology images. A comparison exercise was also made between different database partitions to understand the mammogram breast density effect in the performance since there are few remarks in the literature on this factor. Classification results show that the new CAD method reached an accuracy of 93.5% in mini-Mammo graphic image analysis society (mini-MIAS), 93.99% in digital database for screening mammography (DDSM) and 86.7% in the BreaKHis. We found that the MSRBF networks are able to build tailored and precise image models and, combined with the DCT, to extract high-quality features from both black and white and coloured images.

Mesh‐free approach for enhancement of mammograms

Mammogram enhancement is a key step to detect breast cancer using digital mammogram. The present study investigates mesh-free radial basis function (RBF) collocation method to solve linear diffusion equation for image enhancement of mammograms. The proposed algorithm is compared with the mesh-based finite difference method as well as other existing enhancement methods such as unsharp masking, histogram equalisation, and contrast limited adaptive histogram equalisation. Specifically, figure-of-merits with emphasis on image contrast and computational time are assessed and compared with different image processing techniques. The proposed algorithm has been applied towards the enhancement of all 322 sample mammogram images of Mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society and randomly selected 300 sample images from Digital Database for Screening Mammography databases. Finally, mean and standard deviation of contrast improvement index and peak signal-to-noise ratio have been estimated and presented. The outcome of this study indicates that the mesh-free-based RBF collocation method proves to be a computationally efficient and valuable contrast enhancement technique in an area of mammography.

Extraction of fuzzy rules at different concept levels related to image features of mammography for diagnosis of breast cancer

Mammography is an inexpensive and non-invasive method through which one can diagnose breast cancer in its early stages. As these images need interpretation by a radiologist, this may develop some problems due to fatigue, repetition, and need for a great deal of attention to details and other factors. Thus, a method capable of diagnosing breast cancer should be employed to help physicians in this regard.In this paper, The mini Mammographic Image Analysis Society (mini-MIAS) database of mammograms is used. The aim is to distinguish between normal and abnormal classes. In the preprocessing stage, noise removal, removal of labels of images, heightening the contrast, and ROI segmentation are performed, and then compactness, entropy, mean, and smoothness are extracted from the images. In addition to classification, we have come to a new approach in order to create a complete knowledge base, which then we use this knowledge base for classification. We have a comprehensive knowledge base which covers all the conceptual levels.The extracted features are referred to as fuzzy classifiers through the look-up table method. And, for evaluation of the results, the 10-fold method is used. Discretization operations are performed on training data across 2, 3, and 4 levels to develop concept hierarchy. Concept hierarchies reduce the data by replacing low-level concepts with higher-level concepts and the outcome is more meaningful and easier to interpret. Eventually, Bagging algorithm is used for finding out the majority vote and the final result of the discretization levels. The obtained accuracy is 89.37±6.62.

Detection and Segmentation of Pectoral Muscle on MLO-View Mammogram Using Enhancement Filter.

The presence of predominant density region of the pectoral muscle in Medio-Lateral Oblique (MLO) view of the mammograms can affect or bias the results of mammograms processing for breast cancer detection using intensity based methods. Therefore, to improve the diagnostic performance of breast cancer detection using computer-aided system, identification and segmentation of pectoral muscle is an important task. This paper presents, an intensity based approach to identify the pectoral region in mammograms. In the presented approach enhancement mask and threshold technique is used to enhance and select the pectoral region and boundary points respectively, to find the boundary of pectoral muscle. Then curve fitting by Least Square Error (LSE) method is used to refine the rough initial boundaries. The proposed approach was applied on 320 mammograms from mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (mini-MIAS) database of 322 mammograms, with acceptable rate of 96.56% from radiologist experts. The performance evaluation for pectoral muscle segmentation, based on Hausdorff distance (H d ), False Positive (FP) and False Negative (FN) rate, shows the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Application of texture analysis method for mammogram density classification

Mammographic density is considered a major risk factor for developing breast cancer. This paper proposes an automated approach to classify breast tissue types in digital mammogram. The main objective of the proposed Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system is to investigate various feature extraction methods and classifiers to improve the diagnostic accuracy in mammogram density classification. Texture analysis methods are used to extract the features from the mammogram. Texture features are extracted by using histogram, Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix (GLCM), Gray Level Run Length Matrix (GLRLM), Gray Level Difference Matrix (GLDM), Local Binary Pattern (LBP), Entropy, Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT), Gabor transform and trace transform. These extracted features are selected using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The features selected by ANOVA are fed into the classifiers to characterize the mammogram into two-class (fatty/dense) and three-class (fatty/glandular/dense) breast density classification. This work has been carried out by using the mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) database. Five classifiers are employed namely, Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Naive Bayes (NB), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Experimental results show that ANN provides better performance than LDA, NB, KNN and SVM classifiers. The proposed methodology has achieved 97.5% accuracy for three-class and 99.37% for two-class density classification.

Neighborhood Structural Similarity Mapping for the Classification of Masses in Mammograms.

In this paper, two novel feature extraction methods, using neighborhood structural similarity (NSS), are proposed for the characterization of mammographic masses as benign or malignant. Since gray-level distribution of pixels is different in benign and malignant masses, more regular and homogeneous patterns are visible in benign masses compared to malignant masses; the proposed method exploits the similarity between neighboring regions of masses by designing two new features, namely, NSS-I and NSS-II, which capture global similarity at different scales. Complementary to these global features, uniform local binary patterns are computed to enhance the classification efficiency by combining with the proposed features. The performance of the features are evaluated using the images from the mini-mammographic image analysis society (mini-MIAS) and digital database for screening mammography (DDSM) databases, where a tenfold cross-validation technique is incorporated with Fisher linear discriminant analysis, after selecting the optimal set of features using stepwise logistic regression method. The best area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.98 with an accuracy of is achieved with the mini-MIAS database, while the same for the DDSM database is 0.93 with accuracy .

Evaluation of a New Ensemble Learning Framework for Mass Classification in Mammograms

BackgroundMammography is the most common screening method for diagnosis of breast cancer. Materials and MethodsIn this study, a computer-aided system for diagnosis of benignity and malignity of the masses was implemented in mammogram images. In the computer aided diagnosis system, we first reduce the noise in the mammograms using an effective noise removal technique. After the noise removal, the mass in the region of interest must be segmented and this segmentation is done using a deformable model. After the mass segmentation, a number of features are extracted from it. These features include: features of the mass shape and border, tissue properties, and the fractal dimension. After extracting a large number of features, a proper subset must be chosen from among them. In this study, we make use of a new method on the basis of a genetic algorithm for selection of a proper set of features. After determining the proper features, a classifier is trained. ResultsTo classify the samples, a new architecture for combination of the classifiers is proposed. In this architecture, easy and difficult samples are identified and trained using different classifiers. Finally, the proposed mass diagnosis system was also tested on mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society and digital database for screening mammography databases. ConclusionThe obtained results indicate that the proposed system can compete with the state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy.

Globally supported radial basis function based collocation method for evolution of level set in mass segmentation using mammograms

Computer-aided detection systems play an important role for the detection of breast abnormalities using mammograms. Global segmentation of mass in mammograms is a complex process due to low contrast mammogram images, irregular shape of mass, speculated margins, and the presence of intensity variations of pixels. This work presents a new approach for mass detection in mammograms, which is based on the variational level set function. Mesh-free based radial basis function (RBF) collocation approach is employed for the evolution of level set function for segmentation of breast as well as suspicious mass region. The mesh-based finite difference method (FDM) is used in literature for evolution of level set function. This work also showcases a comparative study of mesh-free and mesh-based approaches. An anisotropic diffusion filter is employed for enhancement of mammograms. The performance of mass segmentation is analyzed by computing statistical measures. Binarized statistical image features (BSIF) and variants of local binary pattern (LBP) are computed from the segmented suspicious mass regions. These features are given as input to the supervised support vector machine (SVM) classifier to classify suspicious mass region as mass (abnormal) or non-mass (normal) region. Validation of the proposed algorithm is done on sample mammograms taken from publicly available Mini-mammographic image analysis society (MIAS) and Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM) datasets. Combined BSIF features perform better as compared to LBP variants with the performance reported as 97.12% sensitivity, 92.43% specificity, and 98% AUC with 5.12 FP/I on DDSM dataset; and 95.12% sensitivity, 92.41% specificity, and 95% AUC with 4.01FP/I on MIAS dataset.

An efficient algorithm for mass detection and shape analysis of different masses present in digital mammograms

The present study introduces an efficient algorithm for automatic segmentation and detection of mass present in the mammograms. The problem of over and under-segmentation of low-contrast mammographic images has been solved by applying preprocessing on original mammograms. Subtraction operation performed between enhanced and enhanced inverted mammogram significantly highlights the suspicious mass region in mammograms. The segmentation accuracy of suspicious region has been improved by combining wavelet transform and fast fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm. The accuracy of mass segmentation has been quantified by means of Jaccard coefficients. Better sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under the curve (AUC) are observed with support vector machine using radial basis kernel function. The proposed algorithm is validated on Mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) and Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM) datasets. Highest 91.76% sensitivity, 96.26% specificity, 95.46% accuracy, and 96.29% AUC on DDSM dataset and 94.63% sensitivity, 92.74% specificity, 92.02% accuracy, and 95.33% AUC on MIAS dataset are observed. Also, shape analysis of mass is performed by using moment invariant and Radon transform based features. The best results are obtained with Radon based features and achieved accuracies for round, oval, lobulated, and irregular shape of mass are 100%, 70%, 64%, and 96%, respectively.

Intensity Based Automatic Boundary Identification of Pectoral Muscle in Mammograms

The pectoral muscle detection is an important assignment to improve the diagnostic performance of the breast cancer detection. In this paper, we have proposed an intensity based approach for pectoral muscle boundary detection in mammograms. The enhancement filter mask of 3×2, have been proposed and applied on the image to enhance the pectoral region of the mammograms. The pectoral boundary points from the candidates were detected based on threshold technique. Finally, all the boundary points detected were connected to obtain the boundary of pectoral muscle. The proposed technique has been tested on 320 digitized mammograms form mini-Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) database of 322 mammograms, with an acceptance rate of 96.56% from expert radiologists. The mean False Positive (FP) and False Negative (FN) rate demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.