Patent Document ID: 8068657
Application ID: 12211405

Base Claim:
1. A method of microcalcification detection in a digital mammographic image, comprising: identifying one or more potential microcalcification sites in the mammographic image according to spot clustering criteria; assigning each of the one or more potential microcalcification sites either as a member of a positive candidate set or as a member of a rejected candidate set according to results from an initial classifier process; optionally executing at least one subsequent classifier process that selectively assigns zero or more members of the positive candidate set to the rejected candidate set according to results from the at least one subsequent classifier process; selecting one or more members of the rejected candidate set as a reclamation candidate set according to results from the initial and any subsequent classifier process; and assigning one or more members of the reclamation candidate set either back to the rejected candidate set or to the positive candidate set according to results from a reclamation classifier process.

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Claim 3:
3. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying one or more potential microcalcification sites in the mammographic image according to spot clustering criteria comprises: applying one or more image enhancement algorithms to the mammographic image; applying an image segmentation algorithm to the enhanced mammographic image, based on the pixel intensity values; and grouping segmented image pixels into spots.