Computerized texture analysis of mammographic parenchymal patterns of digitized mammograms

This study involved a comparative evaluation of various computer-extracted texture features of mammographic parenchymal patterns of women with BRCA1/BRCA2 gene mutations and those of women at low risk of developing breast cancer. With our method, computerized texture analysis is performed on a region of interest (ROI) within the mammographic image. We analyzed mammograms from 172 subjects: 30 women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation and 142 low-risk women. A series of texture features were automatically extracted from each ROI to assess the mammographic parenchymal patterns in the images. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to assess the performance of the computerized texture features in the task of distinguishing between gene mutation carriers and low-risk subjects. Results show that gene mutation carriers and low-risk women have different mammographic patterns. For the gene carriers, their mammographic images have coarse texture, which is indicated by high coarseness values, low fractal dimension, and low entropy. It is expected that women identified as high risk by such radiographic markers of risk might potentially be more aggressively screened for breast cancer. © 2004, Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Duke Scholars

Author Li Lan Molecular Genetics and Microbiology