Automatic assessment of mammographic positioning on the mediolateral oblique view

Mammograms are X-ray images of the compressed breast and are widely used for early detection of breast cancer. A mammogram must be of sufficient quality for the radiologist to detect lesions or other abnormalities with high sensitivity and specificity. Some algorithms are presented for the automatic assessment of the quality of positioning on mediolateral oblique (MLO) view mammograms. Anatomic features, including the breast border, nipple location and pectoral margin, were first extracted from each image. Then several quality criteria, including breast tissue exclusion, nipple in profile, inclusion of inframammary fold, and positioning of the pectoral muscle, were used to assess the adequacy of breast positioning. The assessment method was tested on 322 digitized mammograms in the MIAS database.