Automatic detection of simulated motion blur in mammograms

PurposeTo use machine‐learning algorithms and blur measure (BM) operators to automatically detect motion blur in mammograms. Motion blur has been reported to reduce lesion detection performance and mask small abnormalities, resulting in failure to detect them until they reach more advanced stages. Automatic detection of blur could support the clinical decision‐making process during the mammography exam by allowing for an immediate retake, thereby preventing unnecessary expense, time, and patient anxiety.MethodsBlur was simulated mathematically to mimic the real blur seen in clinical practice. The blur point‐spread‐function (PSF) mask is generated by distributing pixel intensity of an image pixel moving under random motion within the range of blur effect (the maximum amount of tissue motion allowed). The random motion trajectory vector is generated on a super‐sampled image frame to accommodate smaller substeps; the vector was then sampled on a regular pixel grid using subpixel linear interpolation to generate the blur PSF mask. This randomly generated motion trajectory is constrained by several factors: the effects of variations in tissue elasticity, imaging exposure time, and size of blur effect (motion boundary in millimeters) were examined. The blur mask is convolved with a mammogram to create blur. Five motion blur magnitudes (0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mm) were simulated on 244 and 434 mammograms from the INbreast and DDSM databases, respectively. Blur was quantified using nine BM operators for each mammogram and at each blur level. The mammograms were assigned to training (70%) and testing (30%) datasets to train three machine‐learning classifiers: Ensemble Bagged Trees, fine Gaussian SVM, and weighted KNN, to distinguish five levels of blurred from unblurred mammograms, using six‐way classification.ResultsFor the INbreast mammograms, the average classification accuracies were 87.7%, 85.7%, and 85.7% for Ensemble Bagged Trees, fine Gaussian SVM, and weighted KNN, respectively, and the average classification accuracies for DDSM were 93.5%, 93.6%, and 92.7% for Ensemble Bagged Trees, fine Gaussian SVM, and weighted KNN, respectively.ConclusionsPreliminary results show the potential to detect simulated blur automatically using those methods. Although limited work has been done to quantify the effects of motion blur on radiologists’ performance, there is evidence that motion blur might not be detected visually by a human observer and could negatively affect radiologists’ lesion detection performance. As of this date, no other study has investigated the ability of machine‐learning classifiers and BM operators to detect motion blur in mammograms.