Bonfring International Journal of Software Engineering and Soft Computing, Vol. 9, No.
2, April 2019 26
Detection of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome from
Ultrasound Images Using SIFT Descriptors
C. Gopalakrishnan and M. Iyapparaja
Abstract--- Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a
reproductive metabolic complexity described by the quantity
of follicles present in the ovary. Ultrasound imaging of the
ovary contains basic data about the size, number of follicles
and its position. Continuously, the discovery of PCOS is a
troublesome undertaking for radiologists because of the
different sizes of follicles and is very associated with veins and
tissues. In this paper, ultrasound images of ovary are analyzed
using various image processing techniques. For preprocessing
different standard methodologies are applied on ovary images
to enhance the quality of the image. Canny edge detection
method is used to detect the edges of the follicles from the
ultrasound image. Feature Extraction is an important phase in
detection of objects. A robust feature descriptor identification
algorithm called Scale-Invariant Feature Transform is
adopted in this work to detect the presence of the syndrome
from the image. Support Vector Machine is deployed for
training and classification of the data. The proposed system
outperforms other state-of-art methods and proved its efficacy.
Keywords--- Canny, Follicles, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome,
Scale Invariant Feature Transform, Support Vector Machines.
I. INTRODUCTION
P OLYCYSTIC ovary syndrome is a complex predominant
endocrine issue which genuinely impacts ladies'
wellbeing. The confusion is portrayed by the development of
numerous follicular pimples in the ovary. PCOS discourage
the equalization of follicle invigorating hormone and
luteinizing hormone which requirements for an egg to develop
appropriately inside the ovaries [1]. The collection of not
completely created follicles prompts PCOS which have the
basic side effects of fruitlessness, unpredictable menstrual
periods or no menstrual period, undesired hair development on
the face and body, weight gain, stoutness, skin inflammation
and hyperinsulinemia [2]. Restorative imaging, for example,
CT, MRI and Ultrasound methods are familiar with review the
human body so as to finding of sicknesses and its treatment.
Ultrasound is for the most part utilized for imaging liver,
kidney, uterus in light of its noninvasive nature additionally it
is versatile, transferable, versatile, have astounding worldly
goals, and they are moderately modest. These should prompt a
ultrasound evaluation of ovaries. These assessments give
enormous understanding into the state of the ovary and
number of follicle exhibits in it. Because of low quality of
C. Gopalakrishnan, Research Scholar, SITE School, VIT, Vellore.
E-mail: arungopalit@gmail.com
M. Iyapparaja, Associate Professor, SITE School, VIT, Vellore.
E-mail: Iyapparaja.m@vit.ac.in
DOI:10.9756/BIJSESC.9017
ISSN 2277-5099 | © 2019 Bonfring
ultrasound images the error of PCOS is conceivable. Number
of follicles isn't explicit for the polycystic ovaries; in some
cases the typical ovary likewise contains increasingly number
of follicles [3]. To separate polycystic ovary from numerous
follicles of typical ovary, a standard criteria has been
advanced by European Society of Human Reproduction and
Embryology, the American Society for Reproductive
Prescription depict, the polycystic ovaries contain at least
12 follicles with 2 – 9 mm in breadth. Amid the image
securing stage, commotion is presented in the obtained image
in a great deal of conceivable way. The air hole between
human body and the transducer test presents the commotion in
the image which will influence the determination [4]. At the
point when contrast with CT and MRI modalities ultrasound
image contains abundance of clamor especially Speckle Noise.
Dot clamor is multiplicative in nature which will make
analysis troublesome, by debases edge and littlest
recognizable detail in a image. The goals and the nature of a
image are exceedingly founded on the recurrence extend and
the transducers utilized in the test. These days at the season of
procurement to improve the nature of an ultrasound images
higher end ultrasound machines are presented with amazing
transducers in the test, likewise the gel is utilized to decrease
the air prattle between the test and the human body. After
procurement, to improve the division result and for exact
finding, ultrasound ovary images are sifted utilizing different
image de-noising strategies. To precisely find the quantity of
follicles in the ultrasound ovary image, it is important to
decrease the spot clamor. A large portion of the ground-
breaking separating strategies accessible today contain various
control parameters which must be changed in accordance with
get ideal execution. The radiologist utilizing regular
ultrasound machine to examine the ovary and they are turns
the test dynamically to filter ovaries albeit first perceive every
follicle and afterward estimating its size and measurement.
This framework is manual, tedious additionally excruciating to
the patient. To overcome those issues, a robust computational
framework is proposed for the detection of follicles.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
In literature, several contributions on noise reduction using
novel methods based on wavelet thresholding for the
suppression of speckle noise were introduced. Weighted
variance is used for estimating the threshold value. In
automatic segmentation, many filters disturb the sharpness of
the regions, but adaptive wavelet threshold does not degrade
the sharpness of the regions in an image [5]. This is because of
the fact that wavelet transform produces better results when
compared to the median and Wiener filter [6].
Bonfring International Journal of Software Engineering and Soft Computing, Vol. 9, No. 2, April 2019
A modified morphological image cleaning algorithm is
introduced which depends on the mathematical morphology
operation. It is based on set theory. The disadvantage in this
algorithm is that the morphological filter loses its features
corresponding to the size of the structuring element [7].
Michailovich et al. introduces a despeckling method for
ultrasound images, these method without disturbing the
medical image anatomical content remove the noise from the
image [8].
Due to the insufficiency of hormones the egg does not
mature properly and results in failure of ovum release. In
medical diagnosis, identifying follicles from ultrasound image
is a critical issue.
Modified watershed algorithms are used to extract follicles
from ovary which results in over-segmentation. The output of
the watershed algorithm is given as an input to the clustering
algorithm produces better recognition rate [9]. Edge-based
segmentation method results in broken edges. Morphological
operations are used to overcome these problems. Shrinkage of
images may lose vital details from an image. For medical
imaging, accurate results are needed for effective diagnosis
[10].
To efficiently segment follicles region growing methods
were introduced. These methods initially require a seed point
which is manually selected by a physician which also comes
under manual detection of follicles.
Region growing methods are less sensitive to noise and
increase the recognition rate [11]. Morphological operators
often take a binary image. Morphological opening and closing
operations were used to extract the bright features from the
ultrasound image background by using Top hat transform. The
enhanced image is given as input to the Scan line thresholding
for segmentation.
When compared to manual detection, the error rate is less
in this method [12]. Histogram equalization is applied to
enhance the contrast of the de-speckled image. Further, the
negative transformation is applied to the histogram equalized
image as the proposed segmentation method works on high
intensity valued objects. In the segmentation stage, the active
contour without edges is used. The result image after applying
active contour method contains segmented regions with it
[13].
Thresholding is the easiest and effective methods to
achieve optimal threshold value to binarize the grayscale
image. Otsu method is a global threshold selection method
widely used because of its simplicity and quality. The
problems related to energy minimization approach were
solved by new active contour model following the level set
framework. During the curve evolution the changes in the
contour solved implicitly this is the main advantage of the
level set method [14].
In medical imaging to segment region of interest level set
methods are used. Chan and Vese introduces active contours
method also consider information inside the region they solve
this problem using level set methods [15], the geometric active
ISSN 2277-5099 | © 2019 Bonfring
27
contour models are proposed by Caselles et al these methods
based on speed term [16].
Mohammed Ammar et al. introduced thresholding to
initialize the level set segmentation. The binary mask is
obtained from thresholding [17].
III. MATERIALS AND METHODS
a. Dataset Description
The dataset of ovarian ultrasound images are collected
after consulted with professional radiologist and gynecologist
from Nandhini Sri Diagnostic Center.
The image acquisition is done by the GE LOGIQ
ultrasound system with the transvaginal transducer frequency
of 24 Hz. In total, 65 ultrasound ovarian images are used to
conduct this experiment.
b. Processing of Ultrasound Images
• RGB-Gray Scale Conversion
Transformation of a shading image into a grayscale image
comprehensive of notable highlights is a confused procedure.
The changed over grayscale image may lose contrasts,
sharpness, shadow, and structure of the shading image. To
safeguard contrasts, sharpness, shadow, and structure of the
shading image another calculation has proposed.
To change over the shading image into grayscale image the
new calculation performs RGB guess, decrease, and expansion
of chrominance and luminance.
• Image Thresholding
Image thresholding is a straightforward, yet powerful,
method for dividing a image into a forefront and foundation.
This image investigation procedure is a sort of image division
that confines by changing over grayscale images into double
colored (0,1) pixel imputed images. Image thresholding works
well with large amounts of complex images.
• Speckle Noise Elimination
Speckle noise in ultrasound images are undermined with
dot clamor characteristically, which can cause negative
impacts on the based translation and indicative methods.
Detection of speckle noise is an imperative advance
proceeding in the preparation and investigation of the
restorative ultrasound images.
The mathematical expression of multiplicative noise model
is given by
[a, b] k[a, b] + η[a, b]k[a, b]
k=
Let k [a,b] be the original ultrasound ovary image. k [a, b]
be the digitized version of noise and η[a,b] is the noise
function.
Bonfring International Journal of Software Engineering and Soft Computing, Vol. 9, No. 2, April 2019 28

Fig. 1: Workflow of Proposed Method

• Edge Detection the summed up Hough change. Each bunch of at least 3
includes that concur on an item and its posture is then subject
Segmentation of an image is characterized as the way to additionally point by point show confirmation and
toward apportioning it into important sub-parts that show accordingly anomalies are disposed of. At last the likelihood
wanted highlights. Fragmenting follicles from ovary image is that a specific arrangement of highlights demonstrates the
a troublesome errand because of the nearness of delicate nearness of an item is registered, given the exactness of fit and
tissue, common tissue and veins. Thresholding is a optimal number of plausible false matches. Item coordinates that
procedure to separating objects from foundation which breeze through every one of these tests can be recognized as
depends on the rule of minimization work delivers an ideal right with high confidence.
edge esteem. The decision of limit must be made exact by
thinking about the idea of their image and the quantity of Table 1: Segmentation Results of Image with different
articles anticipated from the image. The Binarization Methods
technique converts the image into two color pallets dependent Proposed
on the rule of minimization of inside class change. Original Image Otsu
Method
The processes involved in canny edge detection method are:
• Pre-processing
• Gradient Calculation
• Non-maximum suppression
• Thresholding No of Objects Identified: 8
Identified:4
Present: 7
c. Feature Descriptor Extraction Using SIFT
d. Supervised Classification
Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) is a component
discovery calculation in computer vision to distinguish and Support Vector Machine is a mathematical model, follows
portray neighborhood includes in images. SIFT key points of parametric estimation, works based on the kernel function and
items are first extricated from a lot of reference images and hyperplane otherwise called a decision boundary. The data
put away in a database. An item is perceived in another image points are projected in 2D vector space. Based on the kernel
by separately looking at each component from the new image function, the decision boundary is identified that splits the data
to this database and discovering hopeful coordinating into different groups depends upon the classes it belongs to.
highlights dependent on Euclidean separation of their element With the help of cost function, (RMSE in this case), the error
vectors. From the full arrangement of matches, subsets of key rate of the learning model is adjusted to an optimal point
points that concur on the item and its area, scale, and iteratively. In this work, the feature points extracted from the
introduction in the new image are distinguished to sift through images are considered as features to train the model.
great matches. The assurance of predictable groups is
performed quickly by utilizing a proficient hash table usage of

ISSN 2277-5099 | © 2019 Bonfring

Bonfring International Journal of Software Engineering and Soft Computing, Vol. 9, No. 2, April 2019
e. Performance Evaluation
The performance of the model is calculated using few
standard metrics such as Mean Squared Error, Accuracy and
Normalized Absolute Error. K-Fold cross-validation method is
adopted to evaluate the model performance with 10 folds each.
a. MSE measures the total amount of difference between
the original image and filtered image [18].
R C
∑∑
1
=MSE (G ( s, k ) − G ' ( s, k ) 2
RC =s 1=
k 1
b. The normalized absolute error of filtered image is
defined as
R C R C
=NAE ∑∑
=s 1 =
G ( s, k ) − G ' ( s, k ) ∑∑ G(s, k )
=s 1 =
k 1
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this experiment, various segmentation techniques are
applied on ultrasound image to identify the location of the
follicles. Using SIFT algorithm, the feature descriptors are
detected. The identified vectors are fed into robust Machine
Learning algorithms namely Support Vector Machine (SVM),
Naïve Bayes (NB) and Decision Tree (DT). Among them,
SVM outperformed other two algorithms based on the results
obtained from various performance metrics.
In Fig 2 and 3, the performance of MSE and NAE are
depicted using a graph. Table 3 represents the results of three
ML Algorithms obtained from this experiment.
Fig. 2: Performance Graph for Mean Square Error
Fig. 3: Performance Graph for Normalized Absolute Error
29
Table 2: Performance Evaluation of different ML Algorithms
with Various Metrics
Algorithms/Performance Accuracy MSE NAE
Support Vector Machines 94.40 0.15 0.28
Naïve Bayes 88.25 0.36 0.53
Decision Tree 87.54 0.42 0.69
V. CONCLUSION
This work exhibits a computationally effective strategy for
follicle identification and division of ovarian follicles from the
ultrasound ovary image. In this paper, canny edge detection
method is applied as an underlying cover for the dimension set
definition to detect the edges of the follicles. Also, this
technique identifies the definite number of follicles from the
k 1 ultrasound ovary image. SIFT algorithm detects the feature
descriptors of follicles to identify the presence of syndrome.
For training and classification of the data, SVM is adopted.
This proposed strategy performed well than the other
benchmarking algorithms. Thus these proposed techniques are
more appropriate for extraction and detection of follicles from
the ovary images. In future, more robust algorithms are
deployed in this framework to improve the predictability of
the system for different kind of images.
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