Classification of cervix lesions using filter bank-based texture models

This paper explores the classification of texture patterns observed in digital images of the cervix. In particular, the problem of identifying and segmenting punctations and mosaic patterns is considered. First, the ability of large scale filter banks in characterizing punctations and mosaic structures is studied using texton models. However, texton-based models fail to consistently classify punctation and mosaic sections obtained from cervix images of different subjects. We present a novel method to segment punctations that combines matched filtering using a Gaussian template with Gaussian Mixture Models. Features extracted from the objects detected using this novel method on punctation and mosaic sections are shown to provide excellent classification between punctation and mosaicism. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in detecting punctations and separating punctation sections from mosaic sections.