Image stitching for three-pass whole breast ultrasound

摘要

Early detection through screening is the best defense against morbidity and mortality from breast cancers. Mammography is the most used screening tool for detecting early breast cancer because it can easily obtain the view of whole breast. However, because the ultrasound images are cross-sectional images, not projection images like mammography, and the ultrasound probe does not fully cover the breast width, it is not a convenient screening tool when adjunct with screening mammography. The physician needs a lot of examination time to perform the breast screening. Recently, some whole breast ultrasound scanning machines are developed. The examination could be performed by an experienced technician. Because the probe width still does not fully cover the breast width, several scanning passes are required to obtain the whole breast image. The physician still cannot have a full view of breast. In this paper, an image stitching technique is proposed to stitch multi-pass images into a full-view image. The produced full-view image can reveal the breast anatomy and assists physicians to reduce extra manual adjustment.