RGC-TinyUNet++: Dual-Stage Segmentation for Accurate Early Detection of Mammary Microcalcifications
摘要
Microcalcifications are considered the first radiographic indicators of breast cancer and remain significant biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis. Thus, their reliable detection of mammograms is a key challenge in computer-aided breast imaging. Although deep learning has advanced recently, accurate segmentation of microcalcifications remains challenging, as deep models often miss these fine, low-contrast structures in heterogeneous breast tissue. This study proposes RGC-TinyUNet++, a dual-stage approach combining preprocessing with gamma correction and CLAHE enhancement, followed by ROI extraction focused on 32 \(\times \) 32 extremity-centered patches. Initial segmentation is achieved through constraint guided region growth (RGC), providing a preliminary mask, which is then refined through a lightweight Tiny-UNet model. Evaluated on a mammographic dataset, the results show that our dual-stream strategy not only improves sensitivity to small-scale features but also maintains high precision in segmenting complex anatomical backgrounds. The proposed approach offers great potential to enhance CAD systems for a more accurate and earlier breast cancer diagnosis.