Development of infrared thermal imaging

based on breast thermal index for

Recognition of cancer and non cancer
group through mass screening

By-
Mentors: Akangshi Lahary(1MS15ML005)
Dr.Sriraam, HOD, Medical Electronics, RIT. Apoorva Maiya(1MS15ML011)
Dr.Sharath, Research Scientist, CIT, RIT. Nishchal Bhat M(1MS17ML405)
Dr. Prabha Ravi, Associate Professor, Medical Electronics,RIT Vasanth Patil(1MS17ML410)

Courtesy: google images

 NEED FOR STUDY

• In 2018, it is estimated that 627,000 women died from breast cancer – that is
approximately 15% of all cancer deaths among women. 
• Breast cancer has ranked number one cancer among Indian females as high as 25.8 per
100,000 women and mortality 12.7 per 100,000 women.
• As per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) India had 14 Lakh cancer
patients in 2016 and this is number has been increasing since.
• There is a need for an automated CAD tool to reduce the manual error in breast cancer
screening.
• In a small study published in The American Journal of Surgery, Thermography
accurately identified 58 out 60 breast malignancies among 92 patients; accuracy rate of
97 per cent was obtained.
• Conventional breast cancer techniques like mammography pose the risk of exposure to
X-ray radiation a research showed that every time a subject is exposed to X-rays the risk
of cancer is increased by 2 per cent.
• Ultrasound cannot be used as a standalone tool; it is often used with mammography to
determine the type of the cancer cells. It also misses the early signs like
microcalcification.  
 
 EXISTING MODALITIES AND COMPARISION
Mammography Infrared imaging Ultrasound

Uses x-rays Uses infrared sensors to detect heat High frequency sound waves are
emitted by the body bounced of the breast tissue and collect
as an echo to produce an image

Structural imaging Functional imaging Structural imaging

Early detection method Early detection method used as an Early detection method. Used as an
adjunctive image test adjunctive image test

Can detect tumours in pre-invasive stage May provide the first signal that a Lower spatial resolution. Good at
problem is developing distinguishing solid masses from fluid
filled cysts.

Hormone use decreases sensitivity No known effect No known effect

Large dense and fibrocystic breasts No effect No known effect

cause reading difficulties
LITERATURE REVIEW
S Pre- Segmentati Features Class Result
Sl. No Paper processing on extracted ificat
Database
title/pub. year ion
1. Breast Cancer 94 biopsies in RGB to ROI Mean,   The author
Detection which 60 were Gray selection variance, ANN, suggested that
using malignant and Images Hough skewness, KNN thermograms
Thermogram- 34 were   Transform kurtosis   should be used
A Review of benign   (automated)   with
Latest (Propriety)   mammography
Techniques     complementary
(2016)   screening tool
 

2. Automatic 200 Backgroun Canny edge First order SVM, After using our
image thermogram d removal detection statistic ANN proposed SM, the
segmentation (90 normal , and then operator (mean,   accuracy of SVM
Method for 110 abnormal) resizing. With variance, and MLP
breast cancer (public)   Hough skewness, Reached
analysis using   transform kurtosis) & 96.667%, and
thermography (GLCM) 96.071%,
(oct,2017)   respectively.
   
 S Pre- Segmentati Features Class Result
Sl. No Paper processing on extracted ificat
Database
title/pub. year ion

3. Thermography Proprietary     Higher SVM, sensitivity of

based on 100patients Rgb to gray   order   78% and
cancer 1052 images   Automatic Statistical   specificity of
detection using segmentatio features, 88%. The overall
texture n Centre efficiency of the
features and   calculation system was 83%.
support vector and
machine Histogram
(2015) Generation
 

4. Infrared Various Gaussian Fuzzy C Higher ANN The system's

Thermography databases were ̄filter Means & Order outcomes were
-Based Breast used. followed by Hough Spectra evaluated with
Cancer an edge transform, (HOS) the help of an
Detection — detection K-means oncologist, and
Comprehensiv step using clustering confirmed that it
e Investigation canny achieved
(2019) detector. segmentation
accuracy of
90.30%.
 METHODOLOGY
OBJECTIVES
IMAGE • Mass screening • Generating database through
COLLECT
ION
mass screening
• Image Normalization • Developing algorithms for
PRE-
PROCESS
ING
• Noise filtering automated segmentation
• Developing breast thermal index
SEGMEN
• Polynomial Curve Fitting • Developing GUI for
TATION
classification
• Fractal Dimension
FEATURE
• Lacunarity OUTCOMES
EXTRAC • GLCM features from Law’s
TION • Algorithm for automated
energy maps
segmentation
CLASSIFI
• BackPropagation Neural Network • Classifier to classify normal and
CATION
abnormal breast thermograms
• GUI
• MATLAB APP
GUI
DATASET DETAILS BREAST THERMOGRAM
ACQUISITION PROTOCOL
• Proprietary 50 images. 25 normal
and 25 abnormal images for Patient Preparation
algorithm development.
• Open Source 40 images. 20 Patient Intake form
Normal and 20 Abnormal.
• Total 90 images.
Environmental
conditions
CAMERA PARAMETERS
Patient Acclimation
• Distance- 1m
• Thermography is done in a closed room Breast Thermogram
with ambient temperature 22C. Acquisition Setup
• Emissivity is calibrated to 0.98
• Humidity sensor is placed in the room and Patient Position
the humidity values are to be entered in the
camera. Breast Thermogram
Views
NORMALIZING THE RGB IMAGE

• • Maximum
  and minimum temperature values may differ from each
thermogram
• Average of every maximum and minimum value from each thermogram is
calculated and stored in maximum value and minimum value.
• The new image is normalized using the below equation:
Normalized Image

normalizing rgb
FILTERING METHODS

Following filters are tried out on all the images and their SNR values are tabulated and
compared. The chart shows SNR values of individual images and their mean SNR is
tabulated. Gaussian filter is chosen for noise reduction because of its high SNR i.e.
54.857.
70
60
50
40
Median Filter
30
Gaussian Filter
20
Mean Filter
10
0
-10
-20
SEGMENTATION
Automated segmentation is carried out using polynomial curve fitting technique

Canny edge detection Projection Profile Analysis Breast Boundary detection

Curve selection Polynomial Curve Fitting Right Left

 SEGMENTING ROI
• Gradient Magnitude (Gmag) and Direction (Gdir) of the image is calculated
• The image is binarized and eroded. Let the eroded image be – img
• The two gradients are multiplied with the eroded image- Gmag*img and
Gdir*img
• A mask is created to and applied on the image to obtain the ROI

ROI ROI
FEATURE EXTRACTION

• A Range filter is applied to enhance the underlying image texture.

• Three Features Extracted-
a. Fractal Dimension
b. Lacunarity
c. GLCM from Law’s Energy maps (Contrast, Energy Homogeneity)
• Fractal Dimension is calculated using Box counting method
• Regression plot of number of boxes vs. the size of the box is plotted
• Lacunarity is calculated using Gliding Box Method
• FD and Lacunarity use same size and number of boxes
• 9 Law’s energy maps are obtained and 3 GLCM features mentioned below are
extracted
a. Contrast
b. Energy
c. Correlation
• All the Features Extracted are represented in the form of a chart for visual
interpretation.
FRACTAL DIMENSION
• Box Counting Method (BCM) is used to estimate the Fractal Dimensions.
• The box-counting fractal dimension is sensitive to the scale range. This problem is
resolved by normalizing the images before using box counting method. All the
images are resized to 512 x 512 before applying the method.
• The average value of FD for normal and abnormal breast type are found to be
1.333915 and 1.447565 respectively.

1.7

1.6

1.5

Normal
1.4 Abnormal

1.3

1.2
Fractal dimension
LACUNARITY
• Lacunarity is derived using Gliding box technique which uses the boxes of
same size and number as calculated for Fractal Dimension.
• Lacunarity is calculated for each box and the mean Lacunarity is obtained by
averaging over all Lacunarities for an image
• Mean Lacunarity for normal images was found to be 1.0287 and 1.049 for
abnormal images.
1.07

1.06

1.05

1.04 Normal
Abnormal

1.03

1.02

1.01
Lacunarity
GLCM from LAW’S ENERGY MAPS
• 4 1-D Laws texture filters are used, each filter enhance certain underlying
microstructure features as mentioned in the brackets.
L5 = [+1 +4 6 +4 +1] (Level); E5 = [-1 -2 0 +2 +1] (Edge); S5 = [-1 0 2 0 -1] (Spot)
R5 = [+1 -4 6 -4 +1] (Ripple)
• Combinations of these 4 Filters yield 16 2-D filters. After eliminating mirror filters,
9 texture maps are obtained and applied on each image.
• 3 GLCM features are extracted from these images- (Contrast, Energy, Correlation)
0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3 Normal
Abnormal
0.2

0.1

0
Contrast Energy Correlation
-0.1
CLASSIFICATION and PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Visual Lab Hospital Database

GUI
 CONCLUSION
• Database is collected through mass screening by following the breast thermogram
acquisition protocol.
• As seen from the experimental results, Segmentation techniques carried showed
good results for both the databases.
• A BackPropagation Neural Network is used to classify the images as normal or
abnormal and the evaluation parameters were observed an accuracy of 92% was
obtained for proprietary database and an accuracy of 97.5% was obtained for Open
source database.
• Thermography can be used as a very successful method for screening breast cancer
with the existing modalities to increase precision and ease.

FUTURE SCOPE
• Algorithm can be expanded to a larger database
• Segmentation technique can be made more precise using other automated
techniques.
• Different classifier can be used to suit a much larger database
• A classifier can be further developed to identify if the cancerous breast is benign or
malignant type.
REFERENCES
[1] Antony Morales-Cervantes1, Eleazar Samuel Kolosovas-Machuca2*, Edgar
Guevara2,5, Mireya Maruris Reducindo3, Alix Berenice Bello Hernández3, Manuel
Ramos García 4, Francisco Javier González2” An automated method for the
evaluation of breast cancer using infrared thermography “
[2] R. Ramya Devi1 & G. S. Anandhamala1” Analysis of Breast Thermograms Using
Asymmetry in Infra-Mammary Curves”. Journal of Medical Systems (2019)
43:146
[3] Dayakshini Sathish1 · Surekha Kamath1 · Keerthana Prasad2 · Rajagopal
Kadavigere3 · Roshan J. Martis4” Asymmetry analysis of breast thermograms using
automated segmentation and texture features”
[4] Rangaraj M. Rangayyan1,2 and Thanh M. Nguyen1” Fractal Analysis of Contours
of Breast Masses in Mammograms”
[5]Acharya UR, Ng EYK, Tan JH, Sree SV. Thermography based breast cancer
detection using texture features and support vector machine. J Med Syst. 2012;
36:1503-10.
[6] R. Ramya Devi1 & G. S. Anandhamala1” Analysis of Breast Thermograms Using
Asymmetry in Infra-Mammary Curves”. Journal of Medical Systems (2019) 43:146
 THANK YOU
Individual contribution
1. Vasanth Patil (1MS17ML410)-
Literature Review, Data pre-
processing
2. Nishchal Bhat M
(1MS17ML405)- Data pre-
processing, Classification
3. Akangshi Lahary
(1MS15ML005)- Segmentation,
GUI
4. Apoorva Maiya (1MS15ML011)-
Feature Extraction, Classification.
Special thanks to
1. Dr. B Venkatraman, Mrs. M Menaka
IGCAR, Kalpakkam Tamil Nadu
2. Ramaiah hospital
3. Dr. Sriraam, HOD, Medical Electronics
dept., RIT
4. Dr. Sharath D, Research Scientist,
Center for Imaging Technologies, RIT
5. Dr. Prabha Ravi, Associate Professor,
Medical Electronics, RIT
6. Mrs. Kavya, Research Scholar, Center
for Imaging Technologies, RIT
7. Mrs. Usha, Research Scholar, Center for
Imaging Technologies, RIT