Method and apparatus for automated image analysis of biological specimens
First Claim
1. An electronic microscope system, comprising:
- a processor;
a movable stage, movable in two orthogonal directions, under control of the processor, said movable stage includes at least one part that determines a current position of the movable stage;
a microscope part, which magnifies a sample on the movable stage;
an electronic camera part, which obtains an image of a magnified sample at a specified position controlled by said movable stage; and
at least one vibration isolation mount, coupled to said stage, and isolating vibration between said movable stage and said microscope part.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for automated cell analysis of biological specimens automatically scans at a low magnification to acquire images which are analyzed to determine candidate cell objects of interest. The low magnification images are converted from a first color space to a second color space. The color space converted image is then low pass filtered and compared to a threshold to remove artifacts and background objects from the candidate object of interest pixels of the color converted image. The candidate object of interest pixels are morphologically processed to group candidate object of interest pixels together into groups which are compared to blob parameters to identify candidate objects of interest which correspond to cells or other structures relevant to medical diagnosis of the biological specimen. The location coordinates of the objects of interest are stored and additional images of the candidate cell objects are acquired at high magnification. The high magnification images are analyzed in the same manner as the low magnification images to confirm the candidate objects of interest which are objects of interest. A high magnification image of each confirmed object of interest is stored for later review and evaluation by a pathologist.
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Citations
35 Claims
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1. An electronic microscope system, comprising:
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a processor;
a movable stage, movable in two orthogonal directions, under control of the processor, said movable stage includes at least one part that determines a current position of the movable stage;
a microscope part, which magnifies a sample on the movable stage;
an electronic camera part, which obtains an image of a magnified sample at a specified position controlled by said movable stage; and
at least one vibration isolation mount, coupled to said stage, and isolating vibration between said movable stage and said microscope part. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method comprising:
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using a processor to move a sample holding stage;
magnifying an image of an area of the sample on the movable stage, where the area is based on a moved position of the sample holding stage;
obtaining an electronic file indicative of the magnified image; and
isolating vibration between said moving of said stage and said magnifying and obtaining. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A system, comprising:
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an electronic microscope that obtains an electronic signal indicative of pixels of a microscope image; and
a processor, that processes said electronic signal to determine relationships between different colors within the whole electronic signal. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. A method, comprising:
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obtaining an electronic signal indicative of pixels of a microscope image; and
processes said electronic signal to determine relationships between different colors within each of the pixels of the image. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. A method, comprising:
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obtaining an electronic version of a microscope image; and
determining information about colors within the image by establishing a high threshold and a low threshold for a specified color, counting a number of pixels that are in between said high threshold and said low threshold, dividing the number of pixels by a value which relates pixels to cell size, and using a resultant number as a count of the number of cells within the image. - View Dependent Claims (32, 33)
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34. A method, comprising:
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staining a biological sample with a stain of a specified color;
obtaining an electronic version of a microscope image of said biological sample;
using said specified color to determine high threshold and a low threshold around said specified color;
analyzing the image, to determine information about areas in the image that are in between said high threshold and said low threshold; and
using said information to determine a count of the number of stained cells in the image. - View Dependent Claims (35)
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Specification