APPLICATION OF NEURAL NETWORKS AS AN AID IN MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS AND GENERAL ANOMALY DETECTION

A method for computer-aided detection of anomalies in an image comprise the steps of: (1) dividing the image into a plurality of m.times.n regions; (2) subtracting the background from each of the regions; (3) for each of the regions, selecting a smaller p.times.q subregion; (4) normalizing the p.times.q subregion; (5) feeding the p.times.q subregions into a neural network system, the neural network system having plural member neural networks, each trained to recognize a particular preselected anomaly type; (6) comparing each output value of the plurality of member neural networks to a first threshold; (7) selecting a maximum value from the output values which are greater than the first threshold; (8) comparing the maximum value to a second threshold above which the presence of an anomaly is indicated, and storing the result; (9) clustering a plurality of the stored results to form clusters; and (10) marking the location of the clusters.