Image enhancement for detection of early breast carcinoma by external irradiation

Abstract

Though it is very difficult to detect cancer at the early stage, it is of prime importance since it saves the lives and the normal life style of the patients. Breast cancer ranks the second most dangerous of all forms of cancers;the early it is diagnosed the higher is the survival rate. In this paper, a method of external irradiation by a suitable source for the breasts is proposed to increase the contrast between the thermal images of normal breast cells and the cancer cells. The experiment conducted with the phantom models showed that the temperature difference between the normal and cancerous breast cells is elevated by external irradiation. A normal breast thermogram is used to simulate the thermographic images of normal and cancerous breast cells based on these results. There is a definite possibility of early detection of breast carcinoma by the proposed method since the contrast in image between the normal and cancerous breast cells is enhanced considerably by this method.