1. Effect of a novel segmentation algorithm on radiologists' diagnosis of breast masses using ultrasound imaging.
- Author
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Tian JW, Ning CP, Guo YH, Cheng HD, and Tang XL
- Subjects
- Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Female, Humans, Image Enhancement methods, Middle Aged, Observer Variation, Reproducibility of Results, Sensitivity and Specificity, Algorithms, Breast Neoplasms diagnostic imaging, Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted methods, Pattern Recognition, Automated methods, Ultrasonography, Mammary methods
- Abstract
We investigated the effect of using a novel segmentation algorithm on radiologists' sensitivity and specificity for discriminating malignant masses from benign masses using ultrasound. Five-hundred ten conventional ultrasound images were processed by a novel segmentation algorithm. Five radiologists were invited to analyze the original and computerized images independently. Performances of radiologists with or without computer aid were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The masses became more obvious after being processed by the segmentation algorithm. Without using the algorithm, the areas under the ROC curve (Az) of the five radiologists ranged from 0.70∼0.84. Using the algorithm, the Az increased significantly (range, 0.79∼0.88; p < 0.001). The proposed segmentation algorithm could improve the radiologists' diagnosis performance by reducing the image speckles and extracting the mass margin characteristics., (Copyright © 2012 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2012
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