Digital Breast Tomosynthesis(DBT) with 3D breast image can improve detection sensitivity of breast cancer more than 2D mammogram on dense breast. The nipple location information is needed to analyze DBT. The nipple location is invaluable information in registration and as a reference point for classifying mass or micro-calcification clusters. Since there are visible nipple and invisible nipple in 2D mammogram or DBT, the nipple detection of breast must be possible to detect visible and invisible nipple of breast. The detection method of visible nipple using shape information of nipple is simple and highly efficient. However, it is difficult to detect invisible nipple because it doesn’t have prominent shape. Mammary glands in breast connect nipple, anatomically. The nipple location is detected through analyzing location of mammary glands in breast. In this paper, therefore, we propose a method to detect the nipple on a breast, which has a visible or invisible nipple using changes of breast area and mammary glands, respectively. The result shows that our proposed method has average error of 2.54±1.47mm.

Date Published: 20 March 2015
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9413, Medical Imaging 2015: Image Processing, 94132O (20 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2081527

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9413:
Medical Imaging 2015: Image Processing
Sébastien Ourselin; Martin A. Styner, Editor(s)