Content-based compression of mammograms with fractal-based segmentation and a modified JPEG2000

We describe a strategy for the content-based compression of mammograms. In this two-step strategy, the clinically important structures are first identified via a fractal-based segmentation method. Then, a modified version of JPEG2000 is applied in such a way that lossless compression is applied to the extracted structures from the first step, while a lossy compression is applied to the remaining regions. Preliminary results demonstrate that this strategy can achieve high compression ratios (up to 50:1) without compromising the diagnostic quality of the mammograms. (C) 2004 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.