K8. Hand-Held Computer Aided Diagnosis System with Application in Mammography

In the recent decades, Egypt has witnessed an increase in the number of mammogram scans, raising the need for cheap and portable systems for computer aided diagnosis (CAD) to reduce examination cost and time which can be achieved through embedded systems. In this work, we introduce an early prototype of a low-cost high-performance hand-held CAD system with an application in diagnosingabnormalities in mammography which can be extended in the future for other modalities such as ultrasound imaging. For this application, we used the BeagleBoard-xM which is known for its high performance andequipped with many peripherals. Specifications of the system are described and the results are presented including the diagnostic performance of the CAD system and the comparison between the computational performance of a reference PC and the new embedded system. The new system has the potential for allowing such high technology to be available at low cost thus providing cost-effective healthcare.