Histogram analysis of CT scans for patients with post-mastectomy lymphedema

Post-mastectomy lymphedema is a condition that is present in many women after treatment for breast cancer. It causes physical discomfort, and when prolonged on the long term, results in the formation of fibrotic tissue in the edematous arm. A novel approach to analyze CT images of the arms and to assess the edematous components is proposed in this work. Histogram analysis is performed at different depths of the fat layer in the arm. The results show that the proposed method is useful in differentiating between the normal and the edematous arm, and in detecting fibrotic components in the edematous arm. The preliminary findings, obtained on nine patients, reveal promising new histogram features for the detection of edema and fibrosis and still have to be developed further in a future study.