Automatic Cell Segmentation and Nuclear-to-Cytoplasmic Ratio Analysis for Third Harmonic Generated Microscopy Medical Images

作者：Lee Gwo Giun^*; Lin Huan Hsiang; Tsai Ming Rung; Chou Sin Yo; Lee Wen Jeng; Liao Yi Hua; Sun Chi Kuang; Chen Chun Fu

来源：IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, 2013, 7(2): 158-168.

DOI：10.1109/TBCAS.2013.2253463

• Cell segmentation
• convergence index filter
• nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio (NC ratio)
• third harmonic generation (THG)
• watershed transform

Traditional biopsy procedures require invasive tissue removal from a living subject, followed by time-consuming and complicated processes, so noninvasive in vivo virtual biopsy, which possesses the ability to obtain exhaustive tissue images without removing tissues, is highly desired. Some sets of in vivo virtual biopsy images provided by healthy volunteers were processed by the proposed cell segmentation approach, which is based on the watershed-based approach and the concept of convergence index filter for automatic cell segmentation. Experimental results suggest that the proposed algorithm not only reveals high accuracy for cell segmentation but also has dramatic potential for noninvasive analysis of cell nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio (NC ratio), which is important in identifying or detecting early symptoms of diseases with abnormal NC ratios, such as skin cancers during clinical diagnosis via medical imaging analysis.

• 出版日期2013-4