Snakules for automatic classification of candidate spiculated mass locations on mammography

In this paper, we describe a novel approach for the automatic classification of candidate spiculated mass locations on mammography. Our approach is based on “Snakules” — an evidence-based active contour algorithm that we have recently developed for the annotation of spicules on mammography. We use snakules to extract features characteristic of spicules and spiculated masses, and use these features to classify whether a region of a mammogram contains a spiculated mass or not. The results from our initial classification experiment demonstrate the strong potential of snakules as an image analysis technique to extract features specific to spicules and spiculated masses, which can subsequently be used to distinguish true spiculated mass locations from non-lesion locations on a mammogram and improve the specificity of computer-aided detection (CADe) algorithms.