Brain Thmor Detection using Segmentation based Object Labeling Algorithm

Amitava Halder, Chandan Giri

Department of IT
Bengal Engg. and Sc. University
Shibpur
Howrah-71l103, India.
amitava.halder2008@gmail.com, chandangiri@gmail.com

Abstract-In this paper, we propose an efficient brain

tumor detection method, which can detect tumor and
locate it in the brain MRI images. This method extracts
the tumor by using K-means algorithm followed by Object
labeling algorithm. Also, some preprocessing steps (median
filtering and morphological operation) are used for tumor
detection purpose. It is observed that the experimental
results of the proposed method gives better result in
comparison to other techniques.

Keywords: Morphological opening, K-means algo

rithm, Object Labeling Algorithm, Image segmentation.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Image segmentation holds an important position in

the area of medical image processing [1]. Segmentation
can be used to detect tumor from MRI image. Through
out the few years, different segmentation methods have
been used for tumor detection but it is time consuming
process and also gives inaccurate result. So, computer
aided system can be designed for accurate brain tumor
detection from MRI images. Brain tumor can be broadly
classified as primary brain tumor(the tumor originates in
the brain) and secondary brain tumor (spread to brain
from somewhere else in the body through metastasis)
[2]. Primary brain tumors do not spread to other body
parts and can be malignant or benign and secondary
brain tumors are always malignant. Malignant tumor is
more dangerous and life threatening than benign tumor.
The detection of malignant tumor is more difficult
than benign tumor. For the accurate detection of the
malignant tumor that needs a 3-D representation of brain
and 3-D analyzer tool. Different brain tumor detection
algorithms have been developed in the past few years.
M. Masroor Ahmed and Dzulkifti Bin Mohammad
[1] proposed brain tumor detection method using K
means algorithm. It is observed that tumor is detected
along with non tumor region. Also, Greg Hamerly and
Charles Elkan have presented an algorithm using K
means clustering [3]. This algorithm can be used for

Amiya Halder
Department of CSE
St. T homas College of Engg. and Tech.
Kidderpore
Kolkata 700023, India.
amiya.halder77@gmail.com

better result in image segmentation. J. Selvakumar et

al. [2] has been developed brain tumor detection with
K-means clustering algorithm and finally they have used
FCM for better result. An adaptive K-means algorithm
is considered in [4] to detect micro calcifications in
digital mammograms for breast cancer detection. FCM
technique is used in [5] to extract WM, GM and CSF
from MRI image. M. Shasidhar, V. Sudheer Raja, B. Vi
jay Kumar [6] have modified FCM for fast convergence
of the algorithm. In [7] a technique called Cohesion
Based Self Merging (CSM) is used to refine the detected
tumor area.
In addition, algorithm using threshold technique
based segmentation have also been investigated in tumor
detection problem in [8]. Kiran Thapaliya and Goo
Rak K won [9] has detected tumor from MRI image
using techniques based on morphological operations. In
[10] template matching approach had cited to detect the
tumor. A. Elamy, M.Hu [11] has predicted the growth
of the tumor using similarity measure approach by
combining Bayes Classifier. In this paper, we develop a
brain tumor detection technique for T2-weighted MRI
images, T2-weighted MR images brain tumor appears as
hyper-intense with respect to normal brain tissue. The
existing brain tumor detection methods are based on
different unsupervised learning algorithms (K-means,
Fuzzy C-means (FCM) etc). K-means is partitioned
clustering approach and in FCM, membership value of
each pixel is calculated so that a particular pixel can
belong to a cluster center. Threshold is a particular
intensity value which satisfies a predefined intensity
value, it is used to separate object or Region of Interest
(ROI) from the image background, chosen in the range
of 0 to 255. But it is observed that clustering methods
followed by threshold cannot detect tumor properly
from MRI image, because the image consist of several
non brain tumor tissue. For this reason we formulate
the proposed method using K-means algorithm followed

by Object labeling algorithm also, some preprocessing

steps (median filtering and morphological operation) is
used for tumor detection purpose.
The paper is organized as follows: The new algorithn
is proposed in Section II. Experimental results are
presented in Section III and Section IV concludeds the
paper.
II. PROPOSED METHOD
The basic purpose of this paper is to show only
the tumor region. In this paper, different types of T2weighted images are used for tumor detection. The
complete procedure for the proposed algorithm is given
below.
A. Pre-processing

This is the first step of the proposed method. In this

step, some noises and skull remove from the images
using median filter and morphological operations.
I) Noise Removal: Median filter acts as noise re
moval non linear tool. In this filtering technique each
image pixel is replaced by the neighborhood median
pixel. Median filter is robust and widely used in image
processing because it preserves edges while removing
noise. Another advantage is that it does not create any
new intensity image pixel because median is an existing
pixel value in the neighborhood window (3 x 3).
2) Morphological Opening: Morphological opening
is another important preprocessing (skull removing)
step. Two gray scale morphological operations, Erosion
and Dilation is used for this purpose. Here, 3 x 3
square Structuring Element (SE) is considered for tumor
detection.
B. Segmentation

After preprocessing step, MRI Image is segmented

by K-means clustering algorithm. It is fairly simple
when compared with frequently used fuzzy clustering
methods [1]. K cluster centers are randomly chosen
from image data. Then distance is computed for each
pixel with the K cluster centers. The pixel belongs to
that cluster center which gives minimum distance. Then
the K cluster centers are recomputed and this process
is repeated until the centers converge.
C.

Construct Binary Image

Then, binary image is constructed by Threshold

approach. Threshold intensity is defined as the pixel
intensity value which satisfies a predefined value. After
applying K-means, threshold intensity is applied over
segmented image. In gray scale image 255 is considered
as foreground or object pixel and 0 is considered as
background pixel.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(0

(e)

Figure 1.
Tumor detection using proposed method: (a)Original
lmage(b)applying median filter (c)appJying morphological opening
(d)applying K-means method (e) applying threshold (f) detected
tumor.

D. Object Labeling Algorithm

In this paper, binarized image is labeled using Object

Labeling algorithm. The purpose of this algorithm is to
label different objects within the image [12].
E. Detect Tumor

In the final step, detect the tumor region from labeled

MRI image. The tumor occupies maximum area in
the labeled image, so there is exactly one label in
the labeled image whose frequency value will be the
maximum. The steps of this approach are given below:
Step I : Let there are n labels {lo,h,l2"l(n-1)}
in the labeled image. Count frequency (occurrence) of
each label from the labeled image. Let the frequencies
are {Jo,iI,12"f(n-l)} for labels {lo,h,12"I(n-1)}
respectively.
Step 2: Find max {Jo,iI,12" f(n-1)}' Let this fre
quency is fmax.
Step 3: Search for the label Ib 0 ::; k ::; (n 1) from
the set {1o,h,12" l(n-1)} which have the frequency
value fmax.
Step 4: Perform 8-adjacency with respect to lk in the
labeled image.
Step 5: Construct binary image from the labeled
image.
-

III.

EXPERIMENTAL

RESULTS

The proposed method is applied on different types of

tumor affected T2 weighted MRI images (20 images).
The shape and size of the tumor is different and varying
from image to image. The results (tumor detection)
of the different MRI images using K-means followed
by threshold method, FCM-Kmeans [2] and proposed
method with ground truth (manually created) are shown
in Figure 2. Overall error is calculated from false
alarm and miss alarm. Finally, accuracy of the proposed
system is measured with the help of overall error. It is
observed from the result that percentage of accuracy
of the proposed method is better than the other two
methods (shown in Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5 and
Figure 6). False alarm is defined as if ground truth

Figure 3. False alarm obtained using K-means followed by threshold.

Method [2] and Proposed Method.

Figure 4. Miss alarm obtained using K-means followed by threshold.

Method [2] and Proposed Method.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

Figure 2. Output of the different images:(a)Original lmage(b) Ground

Truth image (c) K-means followed by threshold (d) Method [2] (e)
Proposed Method.

image consist unchanged pixel in the binary tumor

image but proposed binary tumor image consist changed
pixel. Similarly, Miss Alarm is defined as if ground truth
image consist changed pixel in the binary tumor image
but proposed binary tumor image consist unchanged
pixel and

Overall Error
Accuracy

FalseAlarm

Figure 5.
Overall error obtained using K-means followed by
threshold, Method [2] and Proposed Method.

MissAlarm (1)

l - Overall Error
ImageDimension

IV.

5000

100

(2)

CONCLUSION

In this paper, brain tumor is detected from MRI

images using K-means followed by Object Labeling
algorithm. When the tumor is very close to bone, K
means and Fuzzy c-means segmentation cannot segment

Figure 6. Accuracy measured using K-means followed by threshold,

Method [2] and Proposed Method.

the MRI image efficiently. So, new concept and dif

ferent existing techniques can be used to improve the
correctness of these algorithms. New MRI techniques
such as Diffusion-Weighted MRI, Perfusion-Weighted
MRI, and Diffusion-Tensor MRI can be used for tumor
classification. Apart from that, it is known that brain
contains three primary tissues viz. White Matter (WM),
Gary Matter (GM) and Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF); so,
these regions of interest (ROI) can be farther detected
with the help of Segmentation.

[9] K. Thapaliya and G. Kwon, "Extraction of brain tu

mor based on morphological operations," in Proceedings
iEEE-8th international Conference on Computing Tech
nology and Information Management, 2012, pp. 515520.
[10] M. Schmidt, I. Levner, R. Greiner, A. Murtha, and
A. Bistritz,"Segmenting brain tumors using alignment
based features," in Proceedings iEEE-4th International
Conference on Machine Learning and Applications,
2005.
[11] A. Elamy and M. Hu, "Mining brain tumors and track

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