Automated tissue image analysis or histopathology image analysis (HIMA) is a process by which computer-controlled

automatic test equipment Automatic test equipment or automated test equipment (ATE) is any apparatus that performs tests on a device, known as the device under test (DUT), equipment under test (EUT) or unit under test (UUT), using automation to quickly perform measure ...

is used to evaluate tissue samples, using computations to derive quantitative measurements from an image to avoid subjective errors. In a typical application, automated tissue image analysis could be used to measure the aggregate activity of

cancer cell Cancer cells are cells that divide continually, forming solid tumors or flooding the blood or lymph with abnormal cells. Cell division is a normal process used by the body for growth and repair. A parent cell divides to form two daughter cells, an ...

s in a

biopsy A biopsy is a medical test commonly performed by a surgeon, interventional radiologist, an interventional radiologist, or an interventional cardiology, interventional cardiologist. The process involves the extraction of sampling (medicine), sample ...

of a

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

ous

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

taken from a patient. In

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

patients, for example, automated tissue image analysis may be used to test for high levels of

proteins Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, re ...

known to be present in more aggressive forms of breast cancers.

Applications

Automated tissue imaging analysis can significantly reduce uncertainty in characterizing

tumors A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

compared to evaluations done by histologists, or improve the prediction rate of recurrence of some cancers. As it is a digital system, suitable for networking, it also facilitates cooperative efforts between distant sites. Systems for automatically analyzing tissue samples also reduce costs and save time. High-performance CCD cameras are used for acquiring the digital images. Coupled with advanced widefield microscopes and various

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for per ...

for image restoration, this approach can provide better results than confocal techniques at comparable speeds and lower costs.

Processes

The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respo ...

classifies these systems as

medical device A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...

s, under the general instrumentation category of

. ATIS have seven basic processes (sample preparation, image acquisition, image analysis, results reporting, data storage, network communication, and self-system diagnostics) and realization of these functions highly accurate hardware and well-integrated, complex, and expensive software.

Preparation

Specimen preparation is critical for evaluating the tumor in the automated system. In the first part of the preparation process the biopsied tissue is cut to an appropriate size (typically 4 mm), fixed in buffered

formalin Formaldehyde ( , ) (systematic name methanal) is an organic compound with the chemical formula and structure , more precisely . The compound is a pungent, colourless gas that polymerises spontaneously into paraformaldehyde. It is stored as ...

, dehydrated in ethanol-

xylene In organic chemistry, xylene or xylol (; IUPAC name: dimethylbenzene) are any of three organic compounds with the formula . They are derived from the substitution of two hydrogen atoms with methyl groups in a benzene ring; which hydrogens are su ...

, embedded in

paraffin Paraffin may refer to: Substances * Paraffin wax, a white or colorless soft solid (also in liquid form) that is used as a lubricant and for other applications * Liquid paraffin (drug), a very highly refined mineral oil used in cosmetics and for med ...

thin section In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section (or petrographic thin section) is a thin slice of a rock or mineral sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron ...

ed typically to 4 um slices, then mounted onto at least two

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

d slides (a

control Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controlling ...

and a test). Next the paraffin is removed from the tissue, the tissue is rehydrated, then stained. Any inconsistency in these procedures from case to case may result in uncertainties in the outcome of the analysis. These potential and irreducible inconsistencies in analysis results motivated the development of Automated Tissue Image Systems.

Acquisition

Digital micrographs are acquired of the stained specimen on the glass slide. The images are taken by a set of

charge-coupled devices A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...

(CCD).

Analysis

Image analysis Image analysis or imagery analysis is the extraction of meaningful information from images; mainly from digital images by means of digital image processing techniques. Image analysis tasks can be as simple as reading barcode, bar coded tags or a ...

involves complex computer algorithms which identify and characterize cellular color, shape, and quantity of the tissue sample using image pattern recognition technology based on

vector quantization Vector quantization (VQ) is a classical quantization technique from signal processing that allows the modeling of probability density functions by the distribution of prototype vectors. Developed in the early 1980s by Robert M. Gray, it was ori ...

. Vector representations of objects in the image, as opposed to bitmap representations, have superior zoom-in ability. Once the sample image has been acquired and resident in the computer's random access memory as a large array of 0's and 1's, a programmer knowledgeable in cellular architecture can develop deterministic

applied to the entire memory space to detect cell patterns from previously defined cellular structures and formations known to be significant.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Automated Tissue Image Systems Oncology Histology Medical equipment