Extraction of Features for Diagnosing Pneumoconiosis from Chest Radiographs Obtained with a CCD Scanner
Munehiro Nakamura, Koji Abe, Masahide Minami
Journal of Digital Information Management, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2010.
DOI: 
Link: http://www.dline.info/fpaper/jdim/v8i3/1.pdf
Abstract:
This paper presents a computer-aided diagnosis for pneumoconiosis radiographs obtained with a common CCD scanner. Since the existing diagnosis systems for pneumo coniosis extract abnormalities of pneumoconiosis from im ages obtained with a special scanner which can appropriatelyapplyforchestradiographs, itisdifficulttoapply the systems to images obtained with a CCD scanner due to un clear shadow and the systems are not practical for medical doctors due to high costs. In the unclear images, the ab normal levels of pneumoconiosis could depend on density distribution in each of intercostal and rib areas. Therefore, the proposed method measures the abnormalities by extract ing characteristics of the distribution in the areas. Besides, using theabnormalities, theproposedmethodclassifiestheimagesinto the three categories of pneumoconiosis. Exper imental resultsoftheclassificationsfor51right- lungimagesincluding 6 pneumoconiosis images have shown that the proposed abnormalities are well extracted according to the standards of pneumoconiosis categories.