Mammographic risk assessment based on anatomical linear structures

Mammographic risk assessment is concerned with the probability of a woman developing breast cancer. Recently, it has been suggested that the density of linear structures is related to risk. For 321 images from the MIAS database, a measure of line strength was obtained for each pixel using the Line Operator method. The proportion of pixels with line strength above a threshold level was calculated for each image and the results categorised by Tabar pattern, Boyd SCC class and BIRADS class. The results indicated a significant difference between Boyd classes 1–3 (low risk) and classes 4–6 (high risk), and between most Tabar patterns and BIRADS classes.