A Multi-Gaussian Fuzzy Membership Function to the Algorithm Fuzzy GrowCut Applied to Segment Lesions in Mammography Images

Abstract

Segmentation of masses in mammography images is an important task to aid the accurate diagnosis of breast cancer. Although the quality of segmentation is crucial to avoid misdiagnosis, the segmentation process is a challenging task even for specialists, due to the presence of ill-defined edges and low contrast images. One of the techniques of state of the art for tumor segmentation is the Fuzzy GrowCut algorithm. In this work a study is performed on the behavior of this algorithm when using different membership functions for segmentation. Moreover, this research proposes a new membership function, called Multi-Gaussian, which improves the results of Fuzzy GrowCut with respect to those obtained through the use of classical functions.