High-capacity DWT-SVD watermarking for MRI images embedding MITR medical information

Abstract

Securing Medical Imaging Test Reports (MITRs) during digital transmission is a growing concern in the era of telemedicine. Conventional watermarking methods often face a trade-off between imperceptibility, robustness, and payload capacity, especially in the context of sensitive medical data. To address this challenge, we propose an efficient and secure watermarking technique tailored for MRI brain images, using a combination of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The core idea involves embedding four sub-watermarks—a QR-encoded MITR, patient photo, and hospital logos—into strategically selected Region of Non-Interest (RONI) blocks of the cover image, while preserving the diagnostic Region of Interest (ROI). This region-based design ensures both high payload capacity and minimal visual distortion, even under hardware constraints. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that our method maintains high imperceptibility (PSNR > 67 dB, SSIM = 1.000), robustness (NC > 0.9430), and zero Bit Error Rate (BER = 0.1120) under common image processing attacks. Additionally, the use of QR codes for encoding the MITR improves the security and confidentiality of patient data. Compared to recent approaches, our method achieves better performance in both visual quality and robustness, confirming its effectiveness for secure medical image transmission in clinical and telehealth applications