A novel multi-view deep learning approach for BI-RADS and density assessment of mammograms.

Advanced deep learning (DL) algorithms may predict the patient's risk of developing breast cancer based on the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) and density standards. Recent studies have suggested that the combination of multi-view analysis improved the overall breast exam classification. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-view DL approach for BI-RADS and density assessment of mammograms. The proposed approach first deploys deep convolutional networks for feature extraction on each view separately. The extracted features are then stacked and fed into a Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) classifier to predict BI-RADS and density scores. We conduct extensive experiments on both the internal mammography dataset and the public dataset Digital Database for Screening Mammogra-phy (DDSM). The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms the single-view classification approach on two benchmark datasets by huge F1-score margins (+5% on the internal dataset and +10% on the DDSM dataset). These results highlight the vital role of combining multi-view information to improve the performance of breast cancer risk prediction.