TriResNet: A Deep Triple-stream Residual Network for Histopathology Grading

While microscopic analysis of histopathological slides is generally considered as the gold standard method for performing cancer diagnosis and grading, the current method for analysis is extremely time consuming and labour intensive as it requires pathologists to visually inspect tissue samples in a detailed fashion for the presence of cancer. As such, there has been significant recent interest in computer aided diagnosis systems for analysing histopathological slides for cancer grading to aid pathologists to perform cancer diagnosis and grading in a more efficient, accurate, and consistent manner. In this work, we investigate and explore a deep triple-stream residual network (TriResNet) architecture for the purpose of tile-level histopathology grading, which is the critical first step to computer-aided whole-slide histopathology grading. In particular, the design mentality behind the proposed TriResNet network architecture is to facilitate for the learning of a more diverse set of quantitative features to better characterize the complex tissue characteristics found in histopathology samples. Experimental results on two widely-used computer-aided histopathology benchmark datasets (CAMELYON16 dataset and Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) dataset) demonstrated that the proposed TriResNet network architecture was able to achieve noticeably improved accuracies when compared with two other state-of-the-art deep convolutional neural network architectures. Based on these promising results, the hope is that the proposed TriResNet network architecture could become a useful tool to aiding pathologists increase the consistency, speed, and accuracy of the histopathology grading process.Comment: 9 page

Pattern Recognition Software and Techniques for Biological Image Analysis

The increasing prevalence of automated image acquisition systems is enabling new types of microscopy experiments that generate large image datasets. However, there is a perceived lack of robust image analysis systems required to process these diverse datasets. Most automated image analysis systems are tailored for specific types of microscopy, contrast methods, probes, and even cell types. This imposes significant constraints on experimental design, limiting their application to the narrow set of imaging methods for which they were designed. One of the approaches to address these limitations is pattern recognition, which was originally developed for remote sensing, and is increasingly being applied to the biology domain. This approach relies on training a computer to recognize patterns in images rather than developing algorithms or tuning parameters for specific image processing tasks. The generality of this approach promises to enable data mining in extensive image repositories, and provide objective and quantitative imaging assays for routine use. Here, we provide a brief overview of the technologies behind pattern recognition and its use in computer vision for biological and biomedical imaging. We list available software tools that can be used by biologists and suggest practical experimental considerations to make the best use of pattern recognition techniques for imaging assays

Lymphocyte Segmentation using the Transferable Belief Model

Abstract. In the context of several pathologies, the presence of lymphocytes has been correlated with disease outcome. The ability to automatically detect lymphocyte nuclei on histopathology imagery could potentially result in the development of an image based prognostic tool. In this paper we present a method based on the estimation of a mixture of Gaussians for determining the probability distribution of the principal image component. Then, a post-processing stage eliminates regions, whose shape is not similar to the nuclei searched. Finally, a Transferable Belief Model is used to detect the lymphocyte nuclei, and a shape based algorithm possibly splits them under an equal area and an eccentricity constraint principle.

New Technologies to Image Tumors.

The premise of this book is the importance of the tumor microenvironment (TME). Until recently, most research on and clinical attention to cancer biology, diagnosis, and prognosis were focused on the malignant (or premalignant) cellular compartment that could be readily appreciated using standard morphology-based imaging