Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

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Expert Systems with Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

Tumor detection by using Zernike moments on segmented magnetic

resonance brain images
Zafer Iscan *, Zmray Dokur, Tamer lmez
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, 34469 Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Keywords:
Brain tumor detection
MR image segmentation
Incremental neural networks
Continuous wavelet transform
Zernike moments
Symmetry axis determination

a b s t r a c t
In this study, a novel method is proposed for the detection of tumor in magnetic resonance (MR) brain
images. The performance of the novel method is investigated on one phantom and 20 original MR brain
images with tumor and 50 normal (healthy) MR brain images.
Before the segmentation process, 2D continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is applied to reveal the
characteristics of tissues in MR head images. Then, each MR image is segmented into seven classes (six
head tissues and the background) by using the incremental supervised neural network (ISNN) and the
wavelet-bands. After the segmentation process, the head is extracted from the background by simply
discarding the background pixels. Symmetry axis of the head in the MR image is determined by using
moment properties. Asymmetry is analyzed by using the Zernike moments of each of six tissues segmented in the head: two vectors are individually formed for the left and right hand sides of the symmetry
axis on the sagittal plane by using the Zernike moments of the segmented tissues in the head. Presence of
asymmetry and the tumors are inquired by considering the distance between these two vectors.
The performance of the proposed method is further investigated by moving the location of the tumor
and by modifying its size in the phantom image. It is observed that tumor detection is successfully realized for the tumorous 20 MR brain images.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
This paper presents a general framework for analyzing structural and radiometric asymmetry in brain images and determining
the existence of tumors. In a healthy brain, the left and right hemispheres are largely symmetric across the mid-sagittal plane. Brain
tumors may belong to one or both of the following categories:
mass-effect, in which the diseased tissue displaces healthy tissue;
and inltrating, in which healthy tissue has become diseased.
Mass-effect brain tumors cause structural asymmetry by displacing healthy tissue, and may cause radiometric asymmetry in adjacent normal structures due to edema (Lefebvre, Berger, & Laugier,
1998).
For this reason, it is no surprising that the asymmetry can be
utilized as one of the major indicators for the presence of brain tumors. In this study, asymmetry is determined by a novel neural
network based segmentation procedure using transforms.
The constitution of the right data space is a common problem in
connection with segmentation. The features that are sufciently
representative of the physical process must be searched. In the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 212 2856635; fax: +90 212 2853679.
E-mail addresses: iscanz@itu.edu.tr, zaferiscan@yahoo.com (Z. Iscan), dokur@
itu.edu.tr (Z. Dokur), olmezt@itu.edu.tr (T. lmez).
0957-4174/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2009.08.003

literature, it is observed that different transforms are used to extract desired information from biomedical images. Image intensities at the neighboring pixels (Dokur & lmez, 2000) are utilized
to represent the tissues in magnetic resonance and computed
tomography images. Wavelet transform (Dokur, Iscan, & lmez,
2006; Iscan, Kurnaz, Dokur, & lmez, 2006), co-occurrence matrix
(Haering & Lobo, 1999), Fourier transform (Feleppa et al., 1996),
spatial gray-level dependence matrices (Llobet, Perez-Cortes, Toselli, & Juan, 2007) and Laws micro-texture energies (Hsiang &
Sun, 2006) are used to extract tissues in ultrasound images. Wavelet transform is used for the detection of the micro-calcications in
digital mammograms (Zhang, Yoshida, Nishikawa, & Doi, 1998).
The second-order statistical methods include the gray-level
co-occurrence matrices (GLCM, Lefebvre et al., 1998). In GLCM
method, there is an inherent problem to choose the optimal
inter-pixel distance in a given situation. Sixteen features based
on sizes and shapes of lesions were computed for the malignant
and benign lesions of the mammography images (Retico, Delogu,
Fantacci, & Kasae, 2006). The massive lesions were identied
within a rectangular region of interest interactively chosen by a
radiologist.
In pathological cases, the methods based on supervised or unsupervised classication integrating anatomical templates (Kaus
et al., 2001; Wareld, Kaus, Jolesz, & Kikinis, 2000) have shown

Z. Iscan et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

their robustness. Level set methods are also used for brain tumor
segmentation (Ho, Bullitt, & Gerig, 2002) with some success. Mancas and Gosselin (2003) used the iterative watersheds to segment
the brain tumor with a given initialization. Gibbs, Buckley, Blackband, and Horsman (1996) combined morphological process and
region growing method for tumor volume determination. Cabral,
White, Kim, and Effmann (1993) proposed an interactive segmentation of brain tumor based on a three-dimensional (3D) region
growing. Clark et al. (1998), and Udupa and Samarasekera (1996)
have introduced knowledge based techniques to make classication and segmentation more intelligent. Based on the concept of
fuzzy logic, Udupa, Saha, and Lotufo (2002), and Saha and Udupa
(2001) used the fuzzy clustering or the fuzzy connectedness for
addressing the problem of abnormal tissue segmentation and classication. In spite of the power of those kinds of approaches, some
of them need manual tracing (Udupa et al., 1997) for the initialization or a semi-supervised system (Saha & Udupa, 2001) with some
manual learning.
The healthy human brain is largely symmetric across the
mid-sagittal plane, recognizing that structural asymmetry may
indicate disease. In previous studies, shape and volume differences
between the left and right hippocampi in patients with schizophrenia (Csernansky, Joshi, Wang, Miller, & Miller, 1998; Styner & Gerig,
2001) and Alzheimers disease (Csernansky et al., 2000) were
examined. These results have provided only a rough qualitative
difference between the tumor and normal controls and that robust
statistical inference should not be drawn from them. Most other
work involving structural asymmetry has focused on small-scale
geometric inter-hemispheric differences (Smith & Jenkinson,
1999; Thompson, Mega, Vidal, & Toga, 2001). Up to now, little
attention has been paid to gross differences between the left and
right brain hemispheres in patients with brain tumors.
Reviews of mid-sagittal plane (MSP) extraction methods can be
found in Prima, Ourselin, and Ayache (2002). Some of the methods
are based on inter-hemispheric ssure identication and symmetry criteria (Mancas & Gosselin, 2003). They exploit the extraction
of symmetry lines in axial or coronal 2D slices and tting a 3D
plane to the dataset. There are methods based on cross-correlation
and symmetry measures (Llobet et al., 2007; Udupa et al., 2002),
but they are sensitive to asymmetry (Junck, Moen, Hutchins,
Brown, & Kuhl, 1990; Prima et al., 2002). A large deformation
image warping method (Joshi, Lorenzen, Gerig, & Bullitt, 2003) is
used for nding the plane of symmetry, not necessarily being the
MSP. Problem of symmetry detection arises in different areas, e.g.
computer vision, object recognition, shape representation, etc.
Different approaches for this problem can be found in Sun and
Sherrah (1997).
In the literature mentioned above, it is observed that brain
tumors are detected by two different methodologies; mid-sagittal
plane extraction methods, and segmentation or classication processes. In this study, these methodologies are unied to inquire
the presence of asymmetry and hence, the brain tumors. First,
MR head image is coarsely segmented with ISNN (incremental
supervised neural network) by using feature vectors formed by
continuous wavelet transform. Then, after determining the symmetry axis on this coarsely segmented image, presence of asymmetry is investigated on the segmented image by comparing the
Zernike moments of the brain tissues lying on the left and right
hand sides of the symmetry axis. Finally, tumorous tissues are
determined and tumor is visualized apart from the healthy tissues.

2. Methods
In this study, tumor detection is nalized by going through the
following steps: Segmentation of MR head image into seven classes

2541

(six different head tissues and the background), determination of

the symmetry axis of the head, vectoral representation of the tissues lying on the left and right hand sides of the symmetry axis,
indication of asymmetry in the brain, and nally, localization of
the tumor. The techniques employed to perform these processing
steps are explained below.
In this study, 2D continuous wavelet transform and the ISNN
are both employed for the segmentation task of MR head images.
Each MR image is segmented into seven different classes by using
the ISNN. The classes are numbered according to the number of
pixels they contain. The rst label (number 1) is assigned to the
class with the highest number of pixels, and is usually the background in MR images. The seventh label (7) is assigned to the class
with the least number of pixels.
The head is extracted from the background by simply discarding
the background pixels. Symmetry axis of the head in the MR image
is determined by using moment properties. After the determination of the symmetry axis, presence of asymmetry and tumor are
analyzed by using the Zernike moments of each of six tissues segmented in the head. Two vectors, reecting the morphological content of tissues on the left and right hand sides of the symmetry axis
(VLi and VRi, i = 1, 2, . . . , 6), are individually formed by using the
moments of each segmented tissue in the head. The Euclidean distance (Di) between VLi and VRi is computed for each segmented tissue. Details and small asymmetric differences on the segmented
images increase for tissues having higher label (index) values.
Hence, symmetry is investigated on the tissue occupying the highest number of pixels in the head (this is the segmented class with
the second label, background has the rst label) for integrity of the
analysis. The value of D2 is normalized by multiplying it with 2/
(|VL2| + |VR2|). If the normalized D2 (ND2) is higher than a threshold,
it is concluded that there is asymmetry in the head. Once the presence of asymmetry is detected, a new search is started to determine the label of the tissue that contains the tumor.
First of all, each of six distances are weighted (WDi) according to
the number of pixels of tissues on the left and right hand sides of
the symmetry axis. The longest weighted distance (WDT) associated with the Tth tissue is determined. It is concluded that the
Tth tissue contains the tumor. Then, the Tth tissue with tumor is
smoothed by median lter. The location of the tumor is searched
in the Tth tissue by region growing algorithms.
If the value of ND2 is lower than the threshold, the search will be
terminated. This is the case indicating that there is no tumor in any
of the six brain tissues. Determination of the threshold value will
be explained in the Section 4. Detailed information about the moments applied in this study will be given in Section 2.2. Fig. 1
shows the processing blocks in the proposed method.
2.1. Feature extraction by 2D continuous wavelet transform
Main problems of image processing applications include coping
up with large number of features, position and scaling changes.
Therefore, more clever and robust image representation methods
are needed. Some image representation methods contain a number
of parameters that require to be set with correct values in order to
maintain high success for these representation processes. Some of
the methods impose extreme computational load for the segmentation process. Most of them do not efciently represent tissues in
medical images. It is observed that wavelet transforms are frequently used for the representation of tissues. Hence, in this study,
we propose the continuous wavelet transform, which does not impose extreme computational load and parameters to be set.
The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is highly promising
for non-stationary signal processing. In this study, 2D-CWT (using
Gaussian wavelets) which contains low frequency coefcients
is used. By using 2D-CWT, space-scale (or, timefrequency)

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Z. Iscan et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

MR head
image

Image segmentation

Determination of

by ISNN and CWT into

symmetry axis by

seven tissues (T1,T2,...,T7)

using moments

Vectoral representation
of each tissue on the right
hemisphere of brain by

Compute

using Zernike moments

Di, ND2, WDi.

Find the longest

Vectoral representation

of WDi

Determine the
presence of
asymmetry,
tumor and
tumor location

of each tissue on the left

hemisphere of brain by
using Zernike moments
Fig. 1. Processing blocks in the proposed method.

[ G1(xm,yn) , , G9(xm,yn) ]
Components of the input vector
Gi(xm,yn) presented to ISNN

x
O
Original
Image

G1 G2 .

G9

Transformed
Images

Fig. 2. Formation of nine-dimensional vectors by 2D-CWT. Gi(xm, yn) is the intensity

of the ith transformed image at (xm, yn).

assigned to those pixels on the head, and 0 to the background pixels. Hence, two-class segmentation is performed, in other words
the image is binarized. Head of the patient in MR images may be
rotated around the center of mass of the head due to patients
movement during MR imaging session. The angle between the yaxis and the axis passing through the center of mass in heads posterioranterior direction, which is called hhead, is computed on the
segmented MR image by using moment properties. The formulas
related to hhead computation are given below. Before computing
hhead, the center of mass of the segmented head is computed by
using Eq. (1).

x
representation of a signal can be obtained which means a higher
information level. As an image representation method, CWT provides macro evaluation of the image rather than pixel based evaluation. An important parameter related to CWT is the scale
parameter. When the scale value is high, low frequency components of the image are becoming clear and when the scale value
decreases, high frequency components (details) in the image can
be observed well.
In this study, 2D-CWT of the entire medical image was calculated for nine different scale parameters. Thus, nine transformed
images were obtained from the original image. For each pixel,
the intensity values from the nine images were considered together and the generated nine-dimensional vectors were used as
input into the ISNN. Fig. 2 shows the formation of vectors. Here,
x and y show spatial coordinates whereas Gi(xm, yn) values denote
pixels intensities in the transformed images. 2D-CWT is controlled
by two parameters; the main mother wavelet (Gaussian), and the
scale (3.8, 4.4, 5.0, 5.6, 6.2, 6.8, 7.4, 8.0, 8.2) value which determines the frequency range of the sub-bands.
2.2. Determination of asymmetry by using moments and detection of
the tumor
MR head image is segmented into seven classes by using the
ISNN and continuous wavelet transform. After the segmentation,
the tissues are numbered (labeled) sequentially as T1T7 according
to the number of pixels they occupy on the image. The tissue with
the highest number of pixels is labeled with label 1 (T1), and is
usually the background in MR head images.
The regions related to the head are extracted from the background by discarding the pixels belonging to T1, and 1 value is

1 XX
1 XX

x y
y
N x;y 2T
N x;y 2T

Here, T denotes the head region with pixels having 1 values (the
pixels outside T take 0); x and y are the coordinates of pixels in re denote the coordinates
gion T; N is the number of pixels in T; 
x andy
of the center of mass of region T.
Moments of order (p + q) are given below in Eq. (2):

XX
 q
x  xp  y  y

mp;q

x;y

2T

where mp,q represents the central moment of order (p + q) for p,

q = 0, 1, 2, . . .. , hhead is computed by using Eq. (3) Jain, 1989.

hhead



1
2m1;1
Arc tan
2
m2;0  m0;2

Angle hhead is used to determine the symmetry axis.

ysym x  coshhead y  sinhhead

where x and y are the coordinates of the segmented MR image and

ysym represents the symmetry axis (line inclined at an angle of hhead
from the y-axis).
Moments for (p, q) = 0, in Eq.(5), give the numbers of pixels on
the left and right hand sides of the symmetry axis in the ith tissue
of the segmented image. In Eq. (7), weighted areas WAL,i and WAR,i
are determined as the moments computed for the tissues on either
side of the symmetry axis.

mR;i;00

XX
 0
x  x0  y  y
x;y 2Ri

mL;i;00

XX
 0

x  x0  y  y
x;y 2Li

Z. Iscan et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

mT;i;00 mL;i;00 mR;i;00

WAL;i mL;i;00 =mT;i;00 ;

6
WAR;i mR;i;00 =mT;i;00 ;

WAi jWAL;i  WAR;i j

where mL,i,00 and mR,i,00 represent the numbers of the pixels on the
left and right hand sides of the symmetry axis in the ith tissue (Ti) of
the segmented image, respectively. |WAL,i  WAR,i| difference will be
used to determine the tissue with tumor.
By using the moments computed for the left and right hand
sides of the symmetry axis, C16R,i and C16L,i components are
determined. These components that are known as the Zernike polynomials (Jain, 1989) are used as the elements of feature vectors to
inquire the presence of asymmetry in the ith tissue (Ti) of the segmented image. Before computing the C16R,i and C16L,i components, moments (mpq) are normalized as follows:

mR;i;pq mR;i;pq =mR;i;00 ;

C4R,i and C4L,i are determined as follows:

C 4R;i mR;i;30 mR;i;12 2 mR;i;03 mR;i;21 2

C 4L;i mL;i;30 mL;i;12 2 mL;i;03 mL;i;21 2

C 5R;i mR;i;30  3  mR;i;12  mR;i;30 mR;i;12

 mR;i;30 mR;i;12 2  3  mR;i;21 mR;i;03 2
mR;i;03  3  mR;i;21  mR;i;03 mR;i;21
 mR;i;03 mR;i;21 2  3  mR;i;12 mR;i;30 2
C 5L;i mL;i;30  3  mL;i;12  mL;i;30 mL;i;12
 mL;i;30 mL;i;12 2  3  mL;i;21 mL;i;03 2
mL;i;03  3  mL;i;21  mL;i;03 mL;i;21

and nally, C6R,i and C6L,i are determined as follows:

4  mR;i;11  mR;i;30 mR;i;12  mR;i;03 mR;i;21

4  mL;i;11  mL;i;30 mL;i;12  mL;i;03 mL;i;21

C 2R;i mR;i;20  mR;i;02 2 4  m2R;i;11

C 2L;i mL;i;20  mL;i;02 2 4  m2L;i;11

13
The vectors (VLi and VRi) which are representing the shape of the ith
tissue on either side of the symmetry axis are determined as
follows:

C3R,i and C3L,i are determined as follows:

C 3R;i mR;i;30  3  mR;i;12 2 mR;i;03  3  mR;i;21 2

C 3L;i mL;i;30  3  mL;i;12 2 mL;i;03  3  mL;i;21 2

Lk

C 6R;i mR;i;20  mR;i;02  mR;i;30 mR;i;12 2  mR;i;21 mR;i;03 2

C 6L;i mL;i;20  mL;i;02  mL;i;30 mL;i;12 2  mL;i;21 mL;i;03 2

C2R,i and C2L,i are determined as follows:

L1

12

 mL;i;03 mL;i;21 2  3  mL;i;12 mL;i;30 2

Then, C1R,i and C1L,i are computed according to Eq. (8).

C 1L;i mL;i;20 mL;i;02

11

C5R,i and C5L,i are determined as follows:

mL;i;pq mL;i;pq =mL;i;00

C 1R;i mR;i;20 mR;i;02

2543

10

Class layer

V Li C 1L;i ; C 2L;i ; C 3L;i ; C 4L;i ; C 5L;i ; C 6L;i 

V Ri C 1R;i ; C 2R;i ; C 3R;i ; C 4R;i ; C 5R;i ; C 6R;i 
q
jV Li j C 1L;i 2 C 2L;i 2    C 6L;i 2 ;
q
jV Ri j C 1R;i 2 C 2R;i 2    C 6R;i 2

14

The Euclidean distance Di for the ith tissue is computed as follows:

winner takes all

node1

growing direction

Wj1

First layer (network nodes)

x2

. . . . . . . .

q
C 1L;i  C 1R;i 2 C 2L;i  C 2R;i 2    C 6L;i  C 6R;i 2

xN

Fig. 3. Structure of ISNN, N is input space dimension.

15

The value of D2 is normalized as follows:

ND2 D2  2=jV L2 j jV R2 j

WjN
Input nodes

x1

Di

16

If the normalized D2 (ND2) of the second tissue is lower than a predened threshold value, it will be indicated that the tissues of head
do not contain tumor. If ND2 distance is higher than the threshold,
presence of asymmetry in MR head image will be indicated.

Fig. 4. (a) Normal MR brain image, (b) MR brain image with tumor.

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After asymmetry in head is detected, Di distances are weighted

as follows:

WDi Di  jWAR;i  WAL;i j

17

Then, the longest weighted distance is determined. The Tth tissue

that the longest weighted distance is obtained for is accepted to
contain tumor.

After the tumorous Tth tissue is determined, location of the tumor is searched within this tissue. First, the Tth tissue is smoothed
by a median lter of 20  20 size. Thus, pixels which do not belong
to the tumor in the Tth tissue are removed. Then, image smoothed
by median lter is again smoothed by a low pass lter (an average
lter of size 30  30). The highest pixel intensity in the smoothed
image is searched. The coordinates of the highest pixel intensity

Fig. 5. (a) Phantom image segmented into seven classes, (b) segmented head region from the background, (c) segmented second tissue (T2), (d) Tth tissue with brain tumor,
(e) Tth tissue smoothed by low pass lter, and (f) tumor in phantom brain image.

Z. Iscan et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

are used in the region growing process as the seed point. This process exposes the tumorous tissue in the segmented MR image.

3. Articial neural networks

The formulation of a proper data representation is a common
problem in segmentation/classication systems design. In order

2545

to construct realistic classiers, the vectors that are sufciently

representative of the physical process must be found. If the right
representation is not realized, classication performance will decrease. In this case, the solution of the problem is searched in the
classier structures, and articial neural networks (ANNs) are used
as classiers.
The reasons that conduct us to use an ANN as a classier can be
listed as follows: Weights representing the solution are found by

Fig. 6. (a) Original tumorous image segmented into seven classes, (b) segmented head region from the background, (c) segmented second tissue (T2), (d) Tth tissues with
brain tumor, (e) Tth tissue smoothed by low pass lter, and (f) tumor in MR brain image.

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Z. Iscan et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

iteratively training, ANN has a simple structure for physical implementation, ANN can easily map complex class distributions, and
generalization property of the ANN produces appropriate results
for the input vectors that are not present in the training set.
In supervised learning, the number of classes is known a-priori,
and network modies its parameters by analyzing the class distributions in feature space (via the training set).
3.1. Incremental supervised neural network
The ISNN is a two-layer network as shown in Fig. 3. The number of
nodes in the rst layer is automatically determined by the learning
algorithm. The winner-takes-all guarantees that there will be only
one node activated. Each output node represents different information. The labels of the output nodes are saved in the class layer.
The ISNN has incremental structure for supervised learning. The
input layer nodes of the ISNN are formed by choosing vectors from
the training set. All the vectors in the training set have their own
class labels. Learning algorithm of the ISNN computes the Euclidean distances between the rst layer nodes of the ISNN and the input vector, and nds the minimum distance, i.e., rst layer nodes
compete. The classes of the input vector and the winner node
(the node nearest to the input vector) are compared. If their classes

are the same, the weights of the winner node are modied according to Eq. (18):

wji k 1 wji k l  xi k  wji k

18

where wji is the ith weight of the jth winner node, xi is the ith element of the input vector X, k is the iteration number, and l is the
learning rate. Otherwise, a new node is included into the rst layer,
and its weights are determined by the elements of the input vector.
ISNN has an index counter which holds the number of nodes. The
index counter is incremented by one for the new node. In the study,
the learning rate l is kept constant during the training, and is set to
0.05 value.
The procedure for the learning algorithm of the ISNN is as
follows:
Step 1. Initially choose vectors randomly from the training set as
many as the number of classes (i.e., choose one vector
from each class). Each vector represents only one class.
Assign each chosen vector as a rst layer node. Initialize
the iteration number to zero.
Step 2. Increase the iteration number. If the iteration number is
equal to a predetermined maximum value, terminate the
algorithm. Otherwise, go to step 3.

Fig. 7. (a) Normal MR brain image segmented into seven classes, (b) head regions segmented from the background, (c) the segmented tissue having the longest weighted
distance.

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Step 3. Choose one vector randomly from the training set. Compute the distances between each rst layer node of the
ISNN and the input vector, and nd the winner node at
the minimum distance.
Step 4. Compare the classes of the input vector and the winner
node. If their classes are the same, modify the weights of
the winner node according to Eq. (18), and go to step 2.
Otherwise go to step 5.
Step 5. Include the input vector in the ISNN as a new rst layer
node. The elements of the input vector are assigned as
the associated weights of the new rst layer node of
the ISNN. Increase the usage counter of the new node
by one (to be used to form a histogram after the learning), and go to step 2.

realized by using index values of the nodes. Thus, the ISNN gives
the same color to the same tissue after each training phase.
In order to visualize the difference between tissue structures, a
node-coloring scheme based on interpolation technique was used.
The mathematical formulation of the method is expressed in Eq.
(19) where n denotes the nth node in the rst layer. C(n) denotes
the gray tone (color) of node n. d(n, a) and d(n, b) are the Euclidean
distances in the input space between node n and nodes a and b,
respectively. C(a) and C(b) denote the color values of the two most
distant nodes (a and b) in the network. In this scheme, rst of all,
two most distant nodes (a and b) found by calculating Euclidean
distances in the network are colored with 0 and 255 gray values.
Then, the remaining nodes colors are assigned according to their
distances to the formerly colored two nodes. Finally, the segmented image colors are determined according to the related
nodes colors.

3.2. Node removing

As mentioned above in step 5, a usage counter is assigned for

each node. During the training process, usage counter of every winner node is increased by one. A histogram, which shows the usage
frequency of nodes, is formed after the learning phase. If the content of the usage counter of any node is lower than a predened
threshold, the node is removed from the ISNN. The threshold for
the histogram is selected by the user. Removed nodes can be determined via node histogram of ISNN in which x-axis shows the
nodes numbers and y-axis shows the contents of the counters
associated with these nodes. If the counter value of a node is too
low, it means that this node represents a small portion of image
pixels. Without the removal process, as every node of ISNN represents a class, segmentation time will become higher. The threshold
is adjusted so that each node represents more than 1% of all image
pixels.

Cn

 
1
Ca
Cb
1
1


dn; a dn; b
dn; a dn; b

19

4. Computer simulations and conclusions

In the study, phantom image, 20 original MR images with tumor, and 50 normal MR images, which are obtained from different
patients, were used for testing the proposed method. Fig. 4a and b
shows one of the normal and tumorous MR brain images, respectively. The simulations were performed on 2 GHz PC by using MATLAB 7.0.
The proposed method is tested on the phantom image, which is
rotated by 10, for the inquiry of both the advantages and disadvantages of the method. It is assumed that the phantom image
consists of seven classes (six head tissues plus the background)
after the segmentation process. Fig. 5af shows the phantom image
segmented into seven classes, head regions segmented from the
background, the T2 labeled tissue (second tissue with tumor) segmented from the remaining tissues, the segmented Tth tumorous
tissue, the Tth tissue smoothed by low pass lter, and tumor in
MR brain image, respectively. Performance of the proposed method

3.3. Node coloring

Because the training of the weights of the rst layer nodes contains random processes, it is probable that the ISNN can generate a
different color to the same tissue after each training phase. Coloring is realized by using the distances between the nodes, it is not

Table 1
Vector elements representing the geometrical properties of tissues on the left and right hand sides of the symmetry axis.
Image

Tissue (Ti)

Phantom brain image without tumor

2
3
4
5
6
7

|VLi|

|VRi|

.0730
.0716
.5166
.0489
.3606
.0541

Phantom brain image with tumor

WAi (%)
0.50
1.04
0.28
0.04
0.20
0.43

392.2
404.4
398.4
511.5
510.9
595.9

391.4
404.2
393.0
520.2
523.3
593.3

1.945
.9189
5.687
11.27
15.72
8.126

.0097
.0096
.0161
.0048
.0330
.0347

2
3
4
5
6
Tumor

.5873
.0716
.5166
.0489
.3606
30.61

1.54
1.05
0.28
0.04
0.21
71.5

390.7
404.4
398.4
511.5
510.9
274.1

396.2
404.2
393.0
520.2
523.3
432.4

6.076
.9189
5.687
11.26
15.72
342.0

.0937
.0096
.0161
.0048
.0330
244.5

MR brain image without tumor

2
3
4
5
6
7

1.511
1.886
12.98
3.539
42.90
2.483

3.19
3.69
6.44
0.15
0.50
1.78

381.5
424.8
345.6
393.4
346.0
395.3

391.5
427.1
351.8
375.7
337.3
381.2

11.13
8.774
16.08
18.18
11.35
14.74

.3558
.3237
1.036
.0279
.0570
.2624

2.88
2.05
4.57
4.73
3.32
3.80

MR brain image with tumor

2
3
Tumor
5
6
7

11.70
10.40
28.64
2.911
10.93
13.87

9.63
2.73
22.10
2.79
11.47
10.61

353.1
352.1
377.3
404.7
445.7
390.3

401.6
359.3
330.4
379.3
452.8
356.7

52.39
7.355
47.85
26.50
12.38
34.34

5.044
.2007
10.55
.7396
1.421
3.642

13.89
2.07
13.52
6.76
2.76
9.20

hi

Di

WDi

ND2 (%)
0.50
0.20
1.44
2.18
3.04
1.37
1.54
.230
1.44
2.18
3.04
79.1

2548

Z. Iscan et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

Table 2
ND2 values of the tumorous phantom image according to different amounts of noise
Number of noisy pixels added
to the phantom image

ND2 (%) for the T2 tissue

of the phantom image

0 pixels
1000 pixels
3000 pixels
6000 pixels

1.54
1.57
1.55
1.60

is investigated by moving the location of the tumor and modifying

its size in the phantom image. Moreover, the tumorous phantom
image is used to determine the threshold value. Since the value
of the ND2 is ranged from 0 to 1, the ND2 represents the percentage
of relative differences between the left and right hand sides of the
symmetry axis. The threshold value is determined as 20%. This value also handles the details and small asymmetric differences on
the T2 tissue. The threshold value is determined by performing
tests on all 50 normal MR brain images.
Fig. 6af shows the tumorous brain image segmented into seven classes, the head regions segmented from the background,
the T2 labeled tissue (second tissue with tumor) segmented from
the remaining tissues, the segmented Tth tumorous tissue, the
Tth tissue smoothed by low pass lter, and tumor in MR brain image, respectively.
Fig. 7ac shows normal (healthy) brain image segmented into
seven classes, head regions segmented from the background, and

segmented tissue for which the longest weighted distance is obtained, respectively.
Table 1 shows the elements of the vectors representing the geometrical properties of tissues on the left and right hand sides of the
symmetry axis for the phantom brain image, the phantom brain
image with tumor, normal MR brain image and the MR brain image
with tumor. It is observed that the geometrical properties are affected from small asymmetric differences with respect to the symmetry axis in the segmented image.
The proposed novel method gives 100% of segmentation performance for the 20 tumorous and 50 normal MR brain images. In an
MR brain image, it is observed that small asymmetric differences
(not noise) according to the symmetry axis in the segmented image
with seven classes increase the value of ND2. This situation might
cause the proposed algorithm to produce wrong decisions, since
a constant threshold is applied.
Noise is articially added to the tissues of segmented phantom
brain image to investigate the effect of noise on ND2. It is observed
that noise added to the segmented phantom image is not perceived
as an asymmetry. Table 2 shows the value of ND2 for the tumorous
phantom brain image with respect to different amounts of noise. In
Table 2, it is observed that noise does not affect the value of ND2.
Fig. 8ad shows the T2 tissues of the phantom image to which
1000, 2000, 3000 and 6000 noisy pixels are added, respectively.
In Table 1, the value of ND2 belonging to the T2 tissue of the tumorous MR brain image is higher than that of the tumorous phantom

Fig. 8. The Tth tissues (with tumor) of the phantom brain image to which (a) 1000, (b) 2000, (c) 3000, and (d) 6000 noisy pixels are added.

Z. Iscan et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 25402549

brain image. This situation results from the small asymmetric differences in the tumorous MR brain image.
In this study, mid-sagittal plane extraction method and segmentation processes are unied to inquire the presence of asymmetry and the brain tumors. MR brain images are segmented
into seven classes. The pixels that belong to the head tissues are
represented by binary value. The geometrical shapes of binary
images on the left and right hand sides of the symmetry axis are
represented by Zernike moments. Two vectors are individually
formed by the shape information of each tissue (Ti=2,3,. . .,7). In this
study, the usage of both 2D-CWT and ISNN is proposed to segment
MR brain images into seven classes. Different segmentation methods could be applied to form the binary images. The performance
of the proposed method is directly related to the performance of
the segmentation process chosen. In this study, the original image
is transformed into nine images which contain different bands.
Noise and small asymmetric differences in MR images are removed
by 2D-CWT. It is observed that by the analysis on the image which
is smoothed by wavelet-bands, the performance of the novel method is increased. 2D-CWT is controlled by two parameters; the main
mother wavelet, and the scale value that represents the sub-bands.
The Zernike moments are only applied to represent the geometrical shapes of the binary images on both sides of the symmetry
axis. When there exist small differences on the left and right hand
sides of the symmetry axis for tissues with small size, the values of
the weighted distances increase. For this reason, the weighted distance is not used in the representation of the shapes of the binary
images because of accuracy. After asymmetry is detected, this
parameter is applied to determine the tissue with tumor.
Each of the WAi and ND2 are estimators of the asymmetry
according to the symmetry axis of the head. In Table 1, it is observed that since there is not asymmetry (except tumor) for the
phantom brain images (with/without tumor), the values of the
WAi and the ND2 are the same for the T2 tissues of the phantom
images. These values are not the same (approximately the same)
for the T2 tissues of MR brain images (with/without tumor), because there is asymmetry (except tumor) usually.

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