Brain Tumor Detection and Classification in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) using Region Growing, Fuzzy Symmetric Measure, and Artificial Neural Network Backpropagation

Abstract

Brain tumor is one type of malignant tumors that occurs because there is an abnormal and uncontrolled cell division activity. There are several ways to diagnose brain tumors, for example use MRI images. Through the MRI images, the radiologist can see the brain anatomy without performing surgery. However, this process is still done manually and could lead to misdiagnose. In addition, the different characteristics of brain tumor makes the diagnose more difficult. Therefore, we need a system of Computer-Aided Diagnostic (CAD) that will help radiologist in identifying brain tumors. 

In general, the CAD system consists of two major processes, namely image segmentation and feature extraction and classification. One example of segmentation is Region Growing that will classify the pixels based on certain criteria. However, the manual selection of seed point is a drawback of this method. The examples of feature extraction methods are Fuzzy Symmetric Measure (FSM), and First and Second Order Statistics. FSM values can be used to calculate the symmetry of the image brain, while the first and second order to represent feature in the image. As for the classification process, Artificial Neural Network Backpropagation method is widely used for its ability to resolve nonlinear dan complex problems.

This research implements CAD system that uses Region Growing, Symmetric Fuzzy Measure, and Backpropagation Neural Network for detecting and classifying the brain tumors. In addition, the modification of converging square is conducted to select a seed point automatically. After testing, the system generates a 100% accuracy and BER is 0 in the case of distinguishing between normal and tumor brain. Besides, the average accuracy in classifying the types of brain tumors achieved 89.72% , the BER 0.1 for training data, and the average accuracy of 84.44%, BER 0.16 for the testing data.