Preprocessing methods for nodule detection in lung CT

Abstract The use of automatic systems in the analysis of medical images has proven to be very useful to radiologists, especially in the framework of screening programs, in which radiologists make their first diagnosis on the basis of images only, most of those corresponding to healthy patients, and have to distinguish pathological findings from non-pathological ones at an early stage. In particular, we are developing preprocessing methods to be applied for pulmonary nodule Computer Aided Detection in low-dose lung Multi Slice CT (computed tomography) images.

Dissimilarity Application in Digitized Mammographic Images Classification.

Purpose of this work is the development of an automatic classification system which could be useful for radiologists in the investigation of breast cancer. The software has been designed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 collaboration. In the traditional way of learning from examples of objects the classifiers are built in a feature space. However, an alternative ways can be found by constructing decision rules on dissimilarity (distance) representations. In such a recognition process a new object is described by its distances to (a subset of) the training samples. The use of the dissimilarities is especially of interest when features are difficult to obtain or when they have a little discrim…

Detection and classification of microcalcifications clusters in digitized mammograms

In the present paper we discuss a new approach for the detection of microcalcification clusters, based on neural networks and developed as part of the MAGIC-5 project, an INFN-funded program which aims at the development and implementation of CAD algorithms in a GRID-based distributed environment. The proposed approach has as its roots the desire to maximize the rejection of background during the analytical pre-processing stage, in order to train and test the neural network with as clean as possible a sample and therefore maximize its performance. The algorithm is composed of three modules: the image pre-processing, the feature extraction component and the Backpropagation Neural Network mod…

Dissimilarity Application for Medical Imaging Classification

In the traditional way of learning from examples of objects the classifiers are built in a feature space. However, alternative ways can be found by constructing decision rules on dissimilarity (distance) representations. In such a recognition process a new object is described by its distances to (a subset of) die training samples. The use of the dissimilarities is especially of interest when features are difficult to obtain or when they have a little discriminative power. Purpose of this work is the development of an automatic classification system which could be useful for radiologists in the investigation of breast cancer. The software has been designed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 col…

The MAGIC-5 Project: Medical Applications on a Grid Infrastructure Connection