Using FC-CLAHE-ADF to enhance digital mammograms for detecting breast lesions

Abstract

Abstract Digital mammograms are commonly used for breast screening, especially to aid the detection of cancer. However, digital mammograms suffer with low contrast images due to the low exposure factors used. This paper presents a novel image enhancement technique for digital mammogram images known as Fuzzy Clipped Contrast-Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization with Anisotropic Diffusion Filter (FC-CLAHE-ADF). This proposed FC-CLAHE-ADF has adopted a fuzzy-based and histogram-based image enhancement technique where it can further reduce the noise of the digital mammograms while preserving the contrast and brightness. A total of six digital mammograms were retrieved from Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) open-source database. The performance of FC-CLAHE-ADF was compared to Recursive Mean-Separate Histogram Equalization (RMSHE), Fast Discrete Curvelet Transform via Unequally Spaced Fast Fourier Transform (FDCT-USFFT), and FC-CLAHE only. In summary, this novel FC-CLAHE-ADF has provided the most superior results, among other selected enhancement techniques. The resulting images have been able to demonstrate breast lesions better.