Microcalcifications detection from mammographic images based on region growing and variational energy convergence

In this paper we present a new region growing approach for microcalcification detection in mammographie images. This approach is based on combining a variational approach concept and the Region Growing algorithm in order to correctly delineate the microcalcifications (MCs) that appear in a Region Of Interest (ROI). Its main goal is to make an initial seeds evolve towards a meaningful partition of the ROI, using the minimization of such a region-based energy criterion. The obtained results show encouraging results in terms of reduction of false negative detections and in terms of the delineation of the targeted microcalcifications from the ROIs.