250 research outputs found
Learning to Segment Breast Biopsy Whole Slide Images
We trained and applied an encoder-decoder model to semantically segment
breast biopsy images into biologically meaningful tissue labels. Since
conventional encoder-decoder networks cannot be applied directly on large
biopsy images and the different sized structures in biopsies present novel
challenges, we propose four modifications: (1) an input-aware encoding block to
compensate for information loss, (2) a new dense connection pattern between
encoder and decoder, (3) dense and sparse decoders to combine multi-level
features, (4) a multi-resolution network that fuses the results of
encoder-decoders run on different resolutions. Our model outperforms a
feature-based approach and conventional encoder-decoders from the literature.
We use semantic segmentations produced with our model in an automated diagnosis
task and obtain higher accuracies than a baseline approach that employs an SVM
for feature-based segmentation, both using the same segmentation-based
diagnostic features.Comment: Added more WSI images in appendi
Promising Deep Semantic Nuclei Segmentation Models for Multi-Institutional Histopathology Images of Different Organs
Nuclei segmentation in whole-slide imaging (WSI) plays a crucial role in the field of computational pathology. It is a fundamental task for different applications, such as cancer cell type classification, cancer grading, and cancer subtype classification. However, existing nuclei segmentation methods face many challenges, such as color variation in histopathological images, the overlapping and clumped nuclei, and the ambiguous boundary between different cell nuclei, that limit their performance. In this paper, we present promising deep semantic nuclei segmentation models for multi-institutional WSI images (i.e., collected from different scanners) of different organs. Specifically, we study the performance of pertinent deep learning-based models with nuclei segmentation in WSI images of different stains and various organs. We also propose a feasible deep learning nuclei segmentation model formed by combining robust deep learning architectures. A comprehensive comparative study with existing software and related methods in terms of different evaluation metrics and the number of parameters of each model, emphasizes the efficacy of the proposed nuclei segmentation models
HookNet: multi-resolution convolutional neural networks for semantic segmentation in histopathology whole-slide images
We propose HookNet, a semantic segmentation model for histopathology
whole-slide images, which combines context and details via multiple branches of
encoder-decoder convolutional neural networks. Concentricpatches at multiple
resolutions with different fields of view are used to feed different branches
of HookNet, and intermediate representations are combined via a hooking
mechanism. We describe a framework to design and train HookNet for achieving
high-resolution semantic segmentation and introduce constraints to guarantee
pixel-wise alignment in feature maps during hooking. We show the advantages of
using HookNet in two histopathology image segmentation tasks where tissue type
prediction accuracy strongly depends on contextual information, namely (1)
multi-class tissue segmentation in breast cancer and, (2) segmentation of
tertiary lymphoid structures and germinal centers in lung cancer. Weshow the
superiority of HookNet when compared with single-resolution U-Net models
working at different resolutions as well as with a recently published
multi-resolution model for histopathology image segmentatio
Towards Secure and Intelligent Diagnosis: Deep Learning and Blockchain Technology for Computer-Aided Diagnosis Systems
Cancer is the second leading cause of death across the world after cardiovascular disease. The survival rate of patients with cancerous tissue can significantly decrease due to late-stage diagnosis. Nowadays, advancements of whole slide imaging scanners have resulted in a dramatic increase of patient data in the domain of digital pathology. Large-scale histopathology images need to be analyzed promptly for early cancer detection which is critical for improving patient's survival rate and treatment planning. Advances of medical image processing and deep learning methods have facilitated the extraction and analysis of high-level features from histopathological data that could assist in life-critical diagnosis and reduce the considerable healthcare cost associated with cancer. In clinical trials, due to the complexity and large variance of collected image data, developing computer-aided diagnosis systems to support quantitative medical image analysis is an area of active research. The first goal of this research is to automate the classification and segmentation process of cancerous regions in histopathology images of different cancer tissues by developing models using deep learning-based architectures. In this research, a framework with different modules is proposed, including (1) data pre-processing, (2) data augmentation, (3) feature extraction, and (4) deep learning architectures. Four validation studies were designed to conduct this research. (1) differentiating benign and malignant lesions in breast cancer (2) differentiating between immature leukemic blasts and normal cells in leukemia cancer (3) differentiating benign and malignant regions in lung cancer, and (4) differentiating benign and malignant regions in colorectal cancer.
Training machine learning models, disease diagnosis, and treatment often requires collecting patients' medical data. Privacy and trusted authenticity concerns make data owners reluctant to share their personal and medical data. Motivated by the advantages of Blockchain technology in healthcare data sharing frameworks, the focus of the second part of this research is to integrate Blockchain technology in computer-aided diagnosis systems to address the problems of managing access control, authentication, provenance, and confidentiality of sensitive medical data. To do so, a hierarchical identity and attribute-based access control mechanism using smart contract and Ethereum Blockchain is proposed to securely process healthcare data without revealing sensitive information to an unauthorized party leveraging the trustworthiness of transactions in a collaborative healthcare environment. The proposed access control mechanism provides a solution to the challenges associated with centralized access control systems and ensures data transparency and traceability for secure data sharing, and data ownership
Nuclei & Glands Instance Segmentation in Histology Images: A Narrative Review
Instance segmentation of nuclei and glands in the histology images is an
important step in computational pathology workflow for cancer diagnosis,
treatment planning and survival analysis. With the advent of modern hardware,
the recent availability of large-scale quality public datasets and the
community organized grand challenges have seen a surge in automated methods
focusing on domain specific challenges, which is pivotal for technology
advancements and clinical translation. In this survey, 126 papers illustrating
the AI based methods for nuclei and glands instance segmentation published in
the last five years (2017-2022) are deeply analyzed, the limitations of current
approaches and the open challenges are discussed. Moreover, the potential
future research direction is presented and the contribution of state-of-the-art
methods is summarized. Further, a generalized summary of publicly available
datasets and a detailed insights on the grand challenges illustrating the top
performing methods specific to each challenge is also provided. Besides, we
intended to give the reader current state of existing research and pointers to
the future directions in developing methods that can be used in clinical
practice enabling improved diagnosis, grading, prognosis, and treatment
planning of cancer. To the best of our knowledge, no previous work has reviewed
the instance segmentation in histology images focusing towards this direction.Comment: 60 pages, 14 figure
A Comprehensive Overview of Computational Nuclei Segmentation Methods in Digital Pathology
In the cancer diagnosis pipeline, digital pathology plays an instrumental
role in the identification, staging, and grading of malignant areas on biopsy
tissue specimens. High resolution histology images are subject to high variance
in appearance, sourcing either from the acquisition devices or the H\&E
staining process. Nuclei segmentation is an important task, as it detects the
nuclei cells over background tissue and gives rise to the topology, size, and
count of nuclei which are determinant factors for cancer detection. Yet, it is
a fairly time consuming task for pathologists, with reportedly high
subjectivity. Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) tools empowered by modern
Artificial Intelligence (AI) models enable the automation of nuclei
segmentation. This can reduce the subjectivity in analysis and reading time.
This paper provides an extensive review, beginning from earlier works use
traditional image processing techniques and reaching up to modern approaches
following the Deep Learning (DL) paradigm. Our review also focuses on the weak
supervision aspect of the problem, motivated by the fact that annotated data is
scarce. At the end, the advantages of different models and types of supervision
are thoroughly discussed. Furthermore, we try to extrapolate and envision how
future research lines will potentially be, so as to minimize the need for
labeled data while maintaining high performance. Future methods should
emphasize efficient and explainable models with a transparent underlying
process so that physicians can trust their output.Comment: 47 pages, 27 figures, 9 table
ADS_UNet: A Nested UNet for Histopathology Image Segmentation
The UNet model consists of fully convolutional network (FCN) layers arranged
as contracting encoder and upsampling decoder maps. Nested arrangements of
these encoder and decoder maps give rise to extensions of the UNet model, such
as UNete and UNet++. Other refinements include constraining the outputs of the
convolutional layers to discriminate between segment labels when trained end to
end, a property called deep supervision. This reduces feature diversity in
these nested UNet models despite their large parameter space. Furthermore, for
texture segmentation, pixel correlations at multiple scales contribute to the
classification task; hence, explicit deep supervision of shallower layers is
likely to enhance performance. In this paper, we propose ADS UNet, a stage-wise
additive training algorithm that incorporates resource-efficient deep
supervision in shallower layers and takes performance-weighted combinations of
the sub-UNets to create the segmentation model. We provide empirical evidence
on three histopathology datasets to support the claim that the proposed ADS
UNet reduces correlations between constituent features and improves performance
while being more resource efficient. We demonstrate that ADS_UNet outperforms
state-of-the-art Transformer-based models by 1.08 and 0.6 points on CRAG and
BCSS datasets, and yet requires only 37% of GPU consumption and 34% of training
time as that required by Transformers.Comment: To be published in Expert Systems With Application
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