Detailed-contour insensitive features for automated analysis of breast masses in mammograms

Four new features for the analysis of breast masses are presented. These features were designed to be insensitive to the exact shape of the contour of the masses, so that an approximate contour, such as one extracted via an automated segmentation algorithm, can be employed in their computation. The features measure the degree of spiculation of a mass and the local fuzziness of the mass margins. The features were tested for characterization (discrimination between circumscribed and spiculated) and diagnosis (discrimination between benign and malignant) of breast masses, using 319 masses and three different classifiers. Approximately 90% and 76% of correct classification in characterization and diagnosis, respectively, were achieved.