Patent ID: 8428330

Claim:
A method for deriving the amount of dense tissue from a digital mammographic image representation generated by a digital image acquisition system, the method comprising: (1) determining a region of interest, which is comprised of pixels, in said digital mammographic image representation from the digital image acquisition system by computational analysis, (2) computing for each pixel in said digital mammographic image representation in each location (x,y) in said region of interest a value h int (x,y) representing the amount of dense tissue below said pixel as h int ⁡ ( x , y ) = 2 μ fat ⁡ ( E ) - μ int ⁡ ( E ) ⁢ ( Log ⁡ ( p ⁡ ( x , y ) ) - Log ⁡ ( p fat ) ) wherein p(x,y) represents a pixel value of a pixel at location (x,y) in said digital mammographic image, p fat is a reference fat pixel value, μ fat ,μ int are the linear attenuation coefficients of fat tissue and dense tissue as a function of E and E is the mono-energetic energy value of an x-ray source of the digital image acquisition system at image recording, in which E and p fat are derived from said digital mammographic image representation, and (3) from h int , deducing a breast classification value representative of the amount of dense tissue is deduced from said digital mammographic image representation from the digital image acquisition system by computational analysis.