Improved non-linear polynomial filters for contrast enhancement of breast tumors

Abstract

Non-Linear Polynomial Filters (NPF) consists of a framework of weighted coefficients of low-pass and high pass filters. This paper explores the applicability of NPF for the contrast enhancement of breast tumors in mammograms. NPF algorithm in the present work has been improved to provide controlled background suppression during the mammogram enhancement. This is because, in the process to control overshoots and visualization of tumor margins; the uncontrolled background suppression may lead to loss of finer details in the vicinity of the lesion region. Simulation results have shown that the response of the proposed NPF has been reasonably good on mammograms containing tumors embedded in different types of background tissues.