This paper presents a method for automatic detection of spicules in mammograms. The method consists of two steps, enhancement and feature selection. First, spicule shadows are enhanced by a newly developed operation. An opening operation is applied to remove noise and a direction map is made for feature selection. Second, a concentration expression is given with gray levels and two features are selected for recognition of tumors with spicules. In the method, not only is the direction of spicules considered, but also the density is utilized. The method was tested on 24 samples which included seven tumors with spicules. The recognition rate for tumors with spicules was 100% without false positives.

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