Medical Image Watermarking Techniques in the Transform Domain: A Review

Abstract

In today's medical field, the sharing of medical images among healthcare professionals is crucial for improving patient care and efficient handling of medical data. These images are often transmitted across unsecured networks, making them vulnerable to security breaches where attackers could alter, steal, or destroy vital information. Any tampering with medical records could lead to misdiagnoses, potentially endangering patients' lives. This situation underscores the urgent need for robust security measures that guarantee confidentiality, availability, and integrity, including authenticity. One increasingly popular solution to protect patient data against such threats is the use of watermarking techniques. These techniques vary in their approaches, categorized by aspects like robustness, invisibility, capacity, and the type of transform domain used. Transform domain watermarking methods are particularly noted for their high resistance to attacks while maintaining the watermark's invisibility. In this review, we explore a variety of transform domain watermarking techniques specifically designed for medical images. Additionally, we provide a comparative analysis of different kinds of transform domains commonly employed in medical image watermarking.