ROI-based reversible watermarking scheme for ensuring the integrity and authenticity of DICOM MR images

Abstract

Reversible and imperceptible watermarking is recognized as a robust approach to confirm the integrity and authenticity of medical images and to verify that alterations can be detected and tracked back. In this paper, a novel blind reversible watermarking approach is presented to detect intentional and unintentional changes within brain Magnetic Resonance (MR) images. The scheme segments images into two parts; the Region of Interest (ROI) and the Region of Non Interest (RONI). Watermark data is encoded into the ROI using reversible watermarking based on the Difference Expansion (DE) technique. Experimental results show that the proposed method, whilst fully reversible, can also realize a watermarked image with low degradation for reasonable and controllable embedding capacity. This is fulfilled by concealing the data into 'smooth' regions inside the ROI and through the elimination of the large location map required for extracting the watermark and retrieving the original image. Our scheme delivers highly imperceptible watermarked images, at 92.18-99.94 dB Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) evaluated through implementing a clinical trial based on relative Visual Grading Analysis (relative VGA). This trial defines the level of modification that can be applied to medical images without perceptual distortion. This compares favorably to outcomes reported under current state-of-art techniques. Integrity and authenticity of medical images are also ensured through detecting subsequent changes enacted on the watermarked images. This enhanced security measure, therefore, enables the detection of image manipulations, by an imperceptible approach, that may establish increased trust in the digital medical workflow.

A Comprehensive Review on Medical Image Steganography Based on LSB Technique and Potential Challenges

“…images and related data). DICOM is the backbone of all medical imaging sections, whereby it is most widely used to store and transmit medical images that allow multiple manufacturers to incorporate medical imaging devices like workstations, servers, printer, scanners, network hardware, and PACS systems (12,13).…”

“…Furthermore, clinicians can make decisions and produce patients' reports more easily. Nevertheless, there are no security mechanisms that protect the confidentiality of metadata or image authenticity as it is easy to remove, change, or otherwise disconnect the metadata (12,20). The next section will discuss the most important challenges faced by telemedicine, especially in the field of information security for medical images.…”

Integration of Digital Watermarking Technique into Medical Imaging Systems

“…We have proposed a novel reversible watermarking technique to verify the authenticity and integrity of medical images to ensure that manipulations can be revealed and tracked [11]. The exact original images can be retrieved after extracting the watermark successfully.…”

Blind and Robust Watermarking Scheme in Hybrid Domain for Copyright Protection of Medical Images

“…Various methods of hiding information such as digital image watermarking, cryptography, steganography are in common practice to resolve the issues of copyright and secrecy of medical images and patients" diagnostic as well as personal information. Among these techniques, digital image watermarking [6][7][8][9][10] has attracted the attention of researchers because it has a lot of characteristics that can help to resolve the issues of copyright protection and security of medical information.…”