Pattern Enhancement Processing for Mammography (PEM)

Emphasizes the patterns of calcifications.

Calcifications appear as a dot pattern while mammary glands and blood vessels appear as linear patterns in the image.

PEM differentiates between the dot pattern and the linear pattern and only emphasizes the dot pattern of calcifications.

Example of PEM processing application

(a) Original image

(b) MFP-processed image

With MFP, the software differentiates an image by frequency bandwidths and adjusts their emphasis accordingly. However, all signals that belong to the same bandwidth are emphasized at the same density level regardless of whether they are dotted objects (calcifications) or linear objects (mammary glands and blood vessels), thus making the diagnosis difficult.

(c) PEM-processed image

In PEM processing, the software not only differentiates an image by frequency bandwidths but also by the structure of the object being analyzed and emphasizes only the selected object.

As a result of this software's ability to accurately differentiate the calcifications, we have been able to improve diagnostic efficiency.

Notes
  • Image Intelligence™ is a registered trademark of FUJIFILM Corporation.
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