Digital subtraction of temporally sequential mammograms for improved detection and classification of microcalcifications

BACKGROUND: Our aim was to demonstrate that automated detection and classification of breast microcalcifications, according to Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) categorisation, can be improved with the subtraction of sequential mammograms as opposed to using the most recent image only. METHODS: One hundred pairs of mammograms were retrospectively collected from two temporally sequential rounds. Fifty percent of the images included no (BI-RADS 1) or benign (BI-RADS 2) microcalcifications. The remaining exhibited suspicious findings (BI-RADS 4-5) in the recent image. Mammograms cannot be directly subtracted, due to tissue changes over time and breast deformation during mammography. To overcome this challenge, optimised preprocessing, image registration, and postprocessing procedures were developed. Machine learning techniques were employed to eliminate false positives (normal tissue misclassified as microcalcifications) and to classify the true microcalcifications as BI-RADS benign or suspicious. Ninety-six features were extracted and nine classifiers were evaluated with and without temporal subtraction. The performance was assessed by measuring sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under the curve (AUC) at receiver operator characteristics analysis. RESULTS: Using temporal subtraction, the contrast ratio improved ~ 57 times compared to the most recent mammograms, enhancing the detection of the radiologic changes. Classifying as BI-RADS benign versus suspicious microcalcifications, resulted in 90.3% accuracy and 0.87 AUC, compared to 82.7% and 0.81 using just the most recent mammogram (p = 0.003). CONCLUSION: Compared to using the most recent mammogram alone, temporal subtraction is more effective in the microcalcifications detection and classification and may play a role in automated diagnosis systems. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41747-021-00238-w.