A novel fuzzy blend scheme for image enhancement of CT scans bearing liver cancer

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with the design of an image enhancement algorithm which is capable of improving the quality of computed tomography (CT) images for liver cancer diagnosis. A novel soft computing technique namely fuzzy blend scheme (FBS) is proposed in this work. The FBS works in two stages. The first stage is the pre-processing stage in which the image is de-noised and sharpened by the application of a non-linear filter. In the second stage, the pre-processed output is blended with a novel fuzzy transformation function to give the contrast-enhanced image. The method is tested on 181 CT images from 15 patients of liver cancer named hepatocellular carcinoma. Quality metrics computed for the comparison of FBS with the existing methods include signal to noise ratio = 11.4270, enhancement measure = 12.30, structural similarity index = 91% and discrete entropy which is less than original image. The maximum computation time for FBS is 3.488 s. The proposed method can aid the radiologists and physicians in disease diagnosis. It will help in reducing the burden of ionic contrast reagents induced in patients for tumour visualisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Image enhancement
• fuzzy blend scheme
• liver cancer
• computed tomography

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of * JP CT Scan, MRI and Diagnostic Centre * for providing the CT scan dataset of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples and *Dawood University of Engineering and Technology* for providing research facilities. We also thank Mr Leemon Mal and Dr Syed Izhar Zaidi for his support during the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ayesha Amir Siddiqi

Ayesha Amir Siddiqi is an Assistant Professor at Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. She is also enrolled as a PhD scholar at NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. Her research interests include design and application of digital image processing algorithms to the medical images including MRI and CT scans.

Attaullah Khawaja

Dr. Attaullah Khawaja working as Professor and Chairman, Department of Electrical Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi, Pakistan. His academic career spans 23 years and he has held positions as  Co-Chairman, Chairman, Coordinator of Masters of Engineering programmes, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering at NEDUET. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from MUET in 1993, Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from NEDUET in 2002, and Ph.D. in Communication and Information Systems from Beijing Institute of Technology, P.R.China in 2007. He has published more than 25 research papers in International Journals and conferences in the field of Communications, Robotics and Image Processing.

Adnan Hashmi

Dr. Adnan Hashmi is a graduate of Dow Medical College, Karachi of batch 1993 and has done post-graduation in diagnostic radiology from college of physicians & Surgeons Pakistan. He has received visiting fellowship in therapeutic Radiology from National Cancer Centre, Singapore and is associated with the research in Cancer Imaging.