Bangladesh Journal of Physics, 17, 37-43, 2015

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A BRAIN TUMOR DETECTION SYSTEM

FROM THE MRI IMAGES

A. SHOHAG*, K. ALAM, M. R. A. SUMI1 AND M. H. IMTIAZ1

Department of ECE, Institute of Science and Technology, National University

1
Dept. of Applied Physics, Electronics and Communication Engineering, University of Dhaka

Received on 31.12.2014, Accepted for Publication on 21.06.2015

ABSTRACT

Computer aided diagnosis system and medical imaging (MRI, X-rays, CT, and
Ultrasonography etc.) have always been proved essential for better understanding of the
condition of a patient under treatment. This paper demonstrates such a computer-aided
approach for the identification of brain tumors from the raw MRI brain image and to
provide a quantitative analysis of the detected tumors. This proposed strategy
incorporates segmentation and morphological functions to calculate the tumor area
intelligently. Employing a MATLAB GUI, the severity of the diseases is also provided
probabilistically for better understanding.

Keyword: MRI, Brain tumor, MATLAB, GUI, Tumor Classification

1. INTRODUCTION

Brain tumor, the abnormal growth of brain cells, is the major cause of death for millions of people
around the world [1]. Early detection of brain tumor is the prerequisite for the treatment of a
patient. For this purpose, many scanning system of brain such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI), Computed Tomography (CT) scan, X-ray, Ultrasound, Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI),
Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Biopsy (tissue sample analysis) are used extensively [2].
MRI is the safest technique for the scanning and early detection of brain tumors as it does not
involve any kind of radiation [3]. This medical imaging record changing magnetic field, also
called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), can produce different kinds of images based on the
pulse sequences. MRI generally stimulates a signal from the object using both magnetic fields and
radiofrequency pulses. It reads data using magnetic gradients and places it into k-space; k-space is
then translated into spatial domain for providing an image. MRI can be used both for diagnostic
(tumor, bone damage, assess and surgery planning) and research purposes. MRI is capable of
complete body scans, but commonly used for the brain. These images are subject to medical
image processing along with visual inspection and can be further scrutinized using imaging
software specially MATLAB, a fourth generation programming language [4-5] based system. In
this work, a MATLAB based intelligent imaging technique is demonstrated for the extraction of
brain tumor from the raw MRI image and also a probabilistic classification system of brain tumor
is presented using the size of the tumor calculated from the tumor detected. This approach will
certainly help both the trained physicians and the patients who may not get proper guidance to
evaluate the original MRI images.

*Corresponding Author: E-mail: masudul4145@gmail.com

A. SHOHAG, K. ALAM, M. R. A. SUMI AND M. H. IMTIAZ 38

2. BACKGROUND STUDY

Overview Of Brain Tumor

The adult body normally forms new cells only when they are needed to replace the old or
damaged ones. Infants and children form new cells to complete their development in addition to
those needed to repair. A tumor develops if normal or abnormal cells multiply unnecessarily. A
brain tumor is thus a mass of unnecessary cells growing in the brain [1]. When doctors describe
brain tumors, they often use the words benign or malignant according to the degree of
malignancy or aggressiveness of the brain tumor irrespective of the pathological features
contribute to the outcome. Other references classify brain tumors as primary brain tumors and
metastatic brain tumors [1].

Primary Brain Tumors

Primary brain tumors start, and tend to stay, in the brain. Glioblastoma multiforme, astrocytoma,
medulloblastoma, ependymoma are the major examples. Primary brain tumors can also be
grouped into benign and malignant. Benign brain tumor consists of very slow growing cells,
usually has distinct borders, rarely spread, and almost normal appearances when viewed under a
microscope. Surgery alone might be an effective treatment for this type of tumor. Malignant brain
tumors are usually rapid growing, invasive, and life-threatening. These cancerous cells can spread
within the brain and spine, but rarely to other body parts. They lack distinct borders due to their
tendency to send roots into nearby normal tissues. They can also shed cells that travel to distant
parts of the brain and spine by way of the cerebrospinal fluid [6]. Some malignant tumors,
however, do remain localized to a region of the brain or spinal cord. Whereas brain tumors
composed of benign cells, located in a vital area, can still be considered to be life-threatening;
although the tumor and its cells would not be classified as malignant [7].

Metastatic Brain Tumors

Metastatic brain tumors begin as cancer elsewhere in the body and spread to the brain. For
example, cancers of the lung, breast, colon and skin (melanoma) frequently spread to the brain via
the bloodstream or a magnetic-like attraction to other organs of the body. All metastatic brain
tumors are, by definition, malignant, and can truly be called brain cancer.

Tumor Names and Grading

Tumors are named and graded to facilitate communication, treatment planning, and outcome
prediction. The Grade of a tumor indicates its degree of malignancy. Using the WHO grading
system, Grade I tumors are the least malignant and are usually associated with long-term survival.
Pilocytic astrocytoma, craniopharyngioma, and many tumors of neuronsfor example,
gangliocytoma and gangliogliomaare the examples of Grade I tumors. Grade II tumors are
relatively slow growing and have a slightly abnormal microscopic appearance unlike Grade I.
Some can spread into nearby healthy tissues and recur. Grade III tumors are, by definition,
malignant although there is not always a sharp distinction between Grade II and Grade III tumors.
The cells of a Grade III tumor are actively reproducing abnormal cells which grow into nearby
normal brain tissues. These tumors tend to recur, often as a higher Grade. The most malignant
tumors are named as Grade IV. They reproduce rapidly, can have a bizarre appearance when
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A BRAIN TUMOR 39

viewed under the microscope, and easily grow into surrounding healthy brain tissues. These
tumors form new blood vessels so they can maintain their rapid growth. They also have areas of
dead cells in their center. Glioblastoma is the most common example of the Grade IV tumor [7].

3. PROPOSED IMAGING SYSTEM

Fig. 1 shows the block diagram representation of the proposed brain tumor characterization
system. A brief detail of the highlighting sections is provided here:

Fig. 1. Block diagram of the proposed brain tumor classification system.

Brighter Region Intensification

Brighter region intensification is the process of increasing the brighter region of the raw RGB
MRI image. Although MRI images, when viewed in computer screen, are often mistakenly
thought as pure black and white one. The brightness levels of the individual red (R), green (G)
and blue (B) components of RGB are each represented as a number from decimal 0 to 255, or
binary 00000000 to 11111111. Whereas in true black and white, also known as halftone, the only
possible shades are pure black (1) or pure white (0). [8]

RGB to Gray Conversion

Grayscale (or gray level) is the range of shades of gray without any apparent color; hence, less
information for each individual pixel. It is only necessary to specify a single intensity value for
each pixel, as opposed to the three intensities needed to specify each pixel in a full color image. In
fact a gray color is one in which the all R, G, B components have equal intensities in RGB
space, (R=G= B). The lightness of the gray is directly proportional to the number representing the
brightness levels of the primary colors [9]. The darkest possible shade is black, which is the total
absence of transmitted or reflected light: R = G = B = 0 or 00000000, and white, the lightest
possible shade, is represented by R = G = B = 255 or 11111111. Hence, the MRI image is
intended to pre-process in gray-scale level.

High-Pass Filter

An image is sharpened when contrast is enhanced between adjoining areas with little variation in
brightness or darkness. A high pass filter tends to retain the high frequency information within an
image while reducing the low frequency information. The kernel of the high pass filter is designed
to increase the brightness of the center pixel relative to the neighboring pixels. This kernel array
A. SHOHAG, K. ALAM, M. R. A. SUMI AND M. H. IMTIAZ 40

usually contains a single positive value at its center, which is completely surrounded by the
negative values [10-11].

Median Filtering

Median filtering is often used to remove salt and pepper type of noises [12]. Each pixel in an
image has the probability of p/2 (0<p<1) of being contaminated by either a white dot (salt) or a
black dot (pepper).This type of noise consists of random pixels being set to black or white.
Median filtering is similar to an averaging filter, in that each output pixel is set to an average of
the pixel values in the neighborhood of the corresponding input pixel. In median filtering, the
value of an output pixel is determined by the median of the neighboring pixels, rather than the
mean. The median is much less sensitive than the mean to extreme values (called outlier i.e. black
or white). Median filtering is therefore better able to remove these outliers without reducing the
sharpness of the image.

Segmentation by Thresholding

Segmentation is accomplished by scanning the whole image pixel by pixel and labeling each pixel
as object or background according to its binarized gray level. Thresholding provides an easy and
convenient way to perform the segmentation of the region of interest on the basis of the different
intensities or colors in the foreground and background regions of a grayscale or color image
[13].In the simplest implementation, black pixels of the output correspond to background (lower
than threshold value) and white pixels correspond to foreground (higher than threshold value).

Erosion and Dilation

Dilation adds pixels to the boundaries of objects in an image, while erosion removes pixels on
object boundaries [14]. The number of pixels added or removed from the objects in an image
depends on the size and shape of the structuring element used to process the image. In the
morphological dilation and erosion operations, the state of any given pixel in the output image is
determined by applying the rule to the corresponding pixel and its neighbors in the input image.
The rule used to process the pixels defines the operation as dilation or erosion.

Area Calculation

The tumor area can be calculated from the extracted image by using the bwarea function in
MATLAB [15]. The resultant value, can be numeric or logical, corresponds roughly to the total
number of pixels in the image, but might not exactly be the same because different patterns of
pixels are weighted differently [16-17].

4. MATLAB IMPLEMENTATION

Fig.2 represents the step-by-step MATLAB implementation of the system: (a) raw input MRI
RGB image. (b) Brighter region intensified image (c) Grayscale converted image (d) High-pass
filtered image (e) Median filtered image (f) Binary image (g) Eroded image (h) Dilated image
ready for tumor classification.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A BRAIN TUMOR 41

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

(g) (h)

Fig. 2. Step-by-step MATLAB implementation of the proposed brain tumor detection system.

Graphical User Interface (GUI) Development

A user-friendly MATLAB GUI is also designed for this system, where user can detect the
presence of tumor or not from raw MRI image, extract and calculate tumor area with probabilistic
classification with severity (marked in Fig.3). Even an untrained user can input MRI image using
Load MRI Image option. Following the proposed algorithm, the system will provide the step-
by-step processed images.
A. SHOHAG, K. ALAM, M. R. A. SUMI AND M. H. IMTIAZ 42

Fig. 3. Developed GUI for the proposed brain Tumor detection and classification system.

5. ANALYSIS

This system is quite helpful for the users for easy and graphical interaction with the system. Using
this system, the statistically analysis of the tumor area and probabilistic classification is
successfully done from the MRI images of five individual patients [18]. Table1 shows a
comparison between reference classification [18] of brain tumor and the probabilistic
classification of brain tumor by the proposed system.

Table 1. Performance analysis of the proposed system compared to references of brain tumor.

Patient serial Patient 1 Patient 2 Patient 3 Patient 4 Patient 5

no:
MRI image of
brain

Previously 2430.15 1290.13 2268.88 1000 2020

studied area
Previous Anaplastic Astrocytoma Anaplastic Acoustic Anaplastic
classification Astrocytoma Astrocytoma Neuroma Astrocytoma
Present 2415.63 1272.13 2258 940 2258
studied area
Present Anaplastic Astrocytoma Anaplastic Acoustic Anaplastic
classification Astrocytoma Astrocytoma Neuroma Astrocytoma
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A BRAIN TUMOR 43

6. CONCLUSIONS

The proposed system successfully demonstrates a new approach for brain tumor detection and
classification system from MRI images. Even though the user-friendly GUI gives several
advantages to the users, but this system are still facing a number of limitations which is quite
considerable as MRI image processing is still in the intermediate stage. Also the lacking of robust
tumor classification patents limits the performance comparison of the system. Manual inspection
of local brain cancer specialist doctor and the contrast with reference work were the only
indicators of precision. Nevertheless, this system would definitely help both researchers and
physicians to have an overview of patients tumor conditions.

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