Comparison between two packages for pectoral muscle removal on mammographic images

Pectoral muscle removal is a fundamental preliminary step in computer-aided diagnosis systems for full-field digital mammography (FFDM). Currently, two open-source publicly available packages (LIBRA and OpenBreast) provide algorithms for pectoral muscle removal within Matlab environment.

To compare performance of the two packages on a single database of FFDM images.

Only mediolateral oblique (MLO) FFDM was considered because of large presence of pectoral muscle on this type of projection. For obtaining ground truth, pectoral muscle has been manually segmented by two radiologists in consensus. Both LIBRA's and OpenBreast's removal performance with respect to ground truth were compared using Dice similarity coefficient and Cohen-kappa reliability coefficient; Wilcoxon signed-rank test has been used for assessing differences in performances; Kruskal-Wallis test has been used to verify possible dependence of the performance from the breast density or image laterality.

FFDMs from 168 consecutive women at our institution have been included in the study. Both LIBRA's Dice-index and Cohen-kappa were significantly higher than OpenBreast (Wilcoxon signed-rank test P < 0.05). No dependence on breast density or laterality has been found (Kruskal-Wallis test P > 0.05).

Libra has a better performance than OpenBreast in pectoral muscle delineation so that, although our study has not a direct clinical application, these results are useful in the choice of packages for the development of complex systems for computer-aided breast evaluation.