The ultimate goal of the proposal is to develop a low cost rugged portable all optical medical image processing system for breast cancer diagnostics with mammograms. Optical image processing techniques are inherently fast in view of parallel processing. This laboratory is involved during the last ten years in innovating techniques of all optical Fourier and wavelet transforms for image processing. A self adaptive optical Fourier processing system, using photo induced dichroism in a Bacteriorhodopsin film was experimentally demonstrated with applications in noise reduction, edge enhancement and band pass filtering in real time. Application of these powerful techniques for enhancement of medical images is the object of this project. Preliminary results on three mammograms demonstrated the feasibility. By playing with one knob (rotating the analyzer in the optical system) either the micro calcification clusters or the surrounding dense tissue can be selectively displayed. The technique is fast and the scan rate of mammograms is only limited by the frame rate of the CCD camera. An integrated architecture is proposed using electronic optical interfaces. Analog images of mammograms and phantoms will be investigated initially. Both commercially available standard as well as custom designed objects will be used for a thorough contrast detail analysis. The system will be made versatile so that it can accept medical images in analog as well as digital format. The focus is on optimizing the experimental arrangement and study a large number of mammograms in collaboration with the Radiology group of our medicalzchool in Worcester and carry out relevant statistical analysis. Bacteriorhodopsin films are stable up to 140 degrees C and environmental friendly. As no interference is involved in the experiments, vibration isolation and even a coherent light source are not required. The system designed already with a portable and energy efficient battery operated solid state laser is field deployable. With potential new advances in semiconductor lasers on small chips, it may be possible to further decrease the size and cost resulting in a small handy signal enhancing magnifier. The purpose of the investigation is not to compete with the expensive digital techniques for image processing but to develop a low cost portable instrument accessible to rural areas for quick screening of large number of mammograms.
| Yelleswarapu, Chandra S; Kothapalli, Sri-Rajasekhar; Rao, D V G L N (2008) Optical Fourier techniques for medical image processing and phase contrast imaging. Opt Commun 281:1876-1888 |
| Kothapalli, Sri-Rajasekhar; Wu, Pengfei; Yelleswarapu, Chandra S et al. (2005) Nonlinear optical Fourier filtering technique for medical image processing. J Biomed Opt 10:44028 |
| Kothapalli, Sri-Rajasekhar; Yelleswarapu, Chandra S; Naraharisetty, Sriram G et al. (2005) Spectral phase based medical image processing. Acad Radiol 12:708-21 |
