Detection of cluster of microcalcifications based on watershed segmentation algorithm

The presence of clusters of microcalcifications in mammograms is particularly significant for early detection of breast cancer. In this paper a Computer Aided Detection system designed for this task is described. The detection of microcalcifications is performed by means of a segmentation based on a watershed transform and a further analysis based both on heuristic rules and AdaBoost classification. Finally a clustering algorithm is applied to detect those clusters of medical interest. The approach has been successfully tested on a Full Field Digital Mammographic database that has been developed through a strong cooperation between radiologists and computer scientists.