Classification of breast thermal images using artificial neural networks

In this paper we present classification of the thermal images in order to discriminate healthy and pathological cases during breast cancer screening. Different image features and approaches for data reduction and classification have been used to distinguish healthy breast one with malignant tumour. We use image histogram and co-occurrence matrix to get thermal signatures and analyze symmetry between left and right side. The most promised method was based on wavelet transformation and nonlinear neural network classifier. The proposed approach was used in the pilot investigations in the medical centre which is permanently using thermograph for breast cancer screening, as an adjacent method for other classical diagnostic method, such as mammography.