Quantitative expression of microcalcification distribution in mammograph by using fractal dimension

The authors discuss microcalcification observed in a mammograph which is important in diagnosis of early breast cancer. After emphasizing the digitized mammograph images by Laplacian operation, a threshold processing was applied to extract the microcalcifications. Although microcalcification opacity exists for both malignant and benign cases, there were differences in the distribution and the numbers of opaque points. To give a quantitative expression for the microcalcification, the data were evaluated by using fractal dimension. As a result of processing 25 cases, including 10 benign cases, up to 14 out of 15 malignant cases were able to be separated using the fractal dimension