Weakly and fully labeled mammogram classification and localization with a dual branch deep neural network

Abstract

Embodiments may classify medical images, such as mammograms, using weakly labeled data sets, fully labeled data sets, or a combination of both. For example, a method may comprise receiving a whole medical image, extracting a plurality of image patches from the whole medical image, each image patch including a portion of the whole image, generating a representation of features found in the plurality of image patches, classifying each image patch as including a malignant abnormality, a benign abnormality or not including an abnormality to form a classification for each patch, in parallel, the detection branch computes a malignant distribution over patches and a benign distribution over patches resulting in ranking of patches compare to one another for malignancy, and ranking of patches compare to one another for benign. Patches classification probabilities and ranking are multiplied and summed for malignant and benign, resulting in global malignant probability and global benign probability.