Enhancement of mammographic images for detection of microcalcifications

A novel approach to image enhancement of digital mammography images is introduced, for more accurate detection of microcalcification clusters. In original mammographic images obtained by X-ray radiography, most of the information is hidden to the human observer. The method is based on redundant discrete wavelet transform due to its good properties: shift invariance and numeric robustness. The procedure consists of three steps: low-frequency tissue density component removal, noise filtering, and microcalcification enhancement. The experimental results have shown good properties of the proposed method.