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Robust watermarking method in DFT domain for effective management of medical imaging

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Abstract

In general, management of medical data is achieved by several issues of medical information such as authentication, security, integrity, privacy, among others. Because medical images and their related electronic patient record (EPR) data are stored separately; the probability of corruption of this information or their detachment from the corresponding EPR data could be very high. Losing data from the corresponding medical image may lead to a wrong diagnostic. Digital watermarking has recently emerged as a suitable solution to solve some of the problems associated with the management of medical images. This paper proposes a robust watermarking method for medical images to avoid their detachment from the corresponding EPR data in which the watermark is embedded using the digital imaging and communications in medicine standard metadata together with cryptographic techniques. In order to provide a high robustness of the watermark while preserving at the same time a high quality of the watermarked images, the generated watermark is embedded into the magnitude of the middle frequencies of the discrete Fourier transform of the original medical image. During the detection process, the watermark data bits are recovered and detected using the bit correct rate criterion. Extensive experiments were carried out, and the performance of the proposed method is evaluated in terms of imperceptibility, payload, robustness and detachment detection. Quantitative evaluation of the watermarked images is performed by using three of the more common metrics: the peak signal-to-noise ratio, structural similarity index and visual information fidelity. Experimental results show the watermark robustness against several of the more aggressive geometric and signal processing distortions. The receiver operating characteristics curves also show the desirable detachment detection performance of the proposed method. A comparison with the previously reported methods with similar purposes respect to the proposed method is also provided.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Post-Doctoral Scholarships Program and PAPIIT IN-112513 project from DGAPA in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) of Mexico by the support provided during the realization of this research. The authors also thank the Mexican Institute Social Security (IMSS) for providing us the medical images used to carry out this research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Faculty, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Circuito Exterior, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacan, 04510 , Mexico City, Mexico

    Manuel Cedillo-Hernandez & Francisco Garcia-Ugalde

  2. Mechanical Electrical Engineering School, National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, Av. Santa Ana 1000, San Francisco Culhuacan, Coyoacan, 04430 , Mexico City, Mexico

    Mariko Nakano-Miyatake & Hector Perez-Meana

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  1. Manuel Cedillo-Hernandez
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  2. Francisco Garcia-Ugalde
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  3. Mariko Nakano-Miyatake
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  4. Hector Perez-Meana
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Correspondence to Manuel Cedillo-Hernandez.

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Cedillo-Hernandez, M., Garcia-Ugalde, F., Nakano-Miyatake, M. et al. Robust watermarking method in DFT domain for effective management of medical imaging. SIViP 9, 1163–1178 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11760-013-0555-x

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