Segmentation of Breast Nodules on Ultrasonographic Images Based on Marke d-Controlled Watershed Transform

Abstract

Abstract. In this article is presented a computerized segmentation method for breast nodules on ultrasonic images. With the goal of removing the speckle while preserving important information from the lesion boundaries, a Gabor filter followed by an anisotropic diffusion filtering are applied to the ultrasonic image. Furthermore, the marker-controlled Watershed transform defines potential boundaries that maximize the Average Radial Derivative function to get the final lesion contour. The segmentation procedure was applied on a database of 50 images and the computer-delineated margins were compared against manual outlines drawn by two radiologist.