Development of a stained cell nuclei counting system

Niranjan Timilsina; Christopher Moffatt; Kazunori Okada

doi:10.1117/12.878437

10 March 2011 Development of a stained cell nuclei counting system

Niranjan Timilsina, Christopher Moffatt, Kazunori Okada

Proceedings Volume 7962, Medical Imaging 2011: Image Processing; 79620K (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.878437
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2011, Lake Buena Vista (Orlando), Florida, United States

Abstract

This paper presents a novel cell counting system which exploits the Fast Radial Symmetry Transformation (FRST) algorithm [1]. The driving force behind our system is a research on neurogenesis in the intact nervous system of Manduca Sexta or the Tobacco Hornworm, which was being studied to assess the impact of age, food and environment on neurogenesis. The varying thickness of the intact nervous system in this species often yields images with inhomogeneous background and inconsistencies such as varying illumination, variable contrast, and irregular cell size. For automated counting, such inhomogeneity and inconsistencies must be addressed, which no existing work has done successfully. Thus, our goal is to devise a new cell counting algorithm for the images with non-uniform background. Our solution adapts FRST: a computer vision algorithm which is designed to detect points of interest on circular regions such as human eyes. This algorithm enhances the occurrences of the stained-cell nuclei in 2D digital images and negates the problems caused by their inhomogeneity. Besides FRST, our algorithm employs standard image processing methods, such as mathematical morphology and connected component analysis. We have evaluated the developed cell counting system with fourteen digital images of Tobacco Hornworm's nervous system collected for this study with ground-truth cell counts by biology experts. Experimental results show that our system has a minimum error of 1.41% and mean error of 16.68% which is at least forty-four percent better than the algorithm without FRST.

Citation Download Citation

Niranjan Timilsina, Christopher Moffatt, and Kazunori Okada "Development of a stained cell nuclei counting system", Proc. SPIE 7962, Medical Imaging 2011: Image Processing, 79620K (10 March 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.878437

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available