Research on 3-D analysis of histopathologic specimen for histopathologic diagnosis support

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The purpose of this research were to analyze a histopathologic specimen as a 3-D object, and to develop a histopathologic diagnosis support system which calculate useful information such as 3-D nuclear density independent of the specimen's thickness.Effect of specimen's thickness on the observed (2-D) nuclear density was evaluated theoretically and experimentally, and it was revealed that 1 um of thickness change results in about 10% of change in nuclear density.A method to non-destructively measure the thickness of a histopathologic specimen was realized. The method uses the images captured using an optical microscope so that many pathologists can utilize it.Histopathologic images observed using an optical microscope usually have undesirable blur. A method to reduce blur in the 3-D image was realized. The method uses improved blind deconvolution, and satisfactory results were obtained to construct 3-D models of nuclei.A method to estimate nuclear parameters (3-D nuclear density, average and variance of nuclear radii) was realized. The method utilized only a 2-D microscopic image which pathologists are usually observing so that they can easily use the method. Sequential estimation method in which each parameter is estimated sequentially was also developed to reduce the computation time.Finally, a GUI was developed that enables a user to use the developed method easily. The GUI has functions to semi-automatically extract the nuclear positions and nuclear contours, and to estimate nuclear parameters. Nuclear positions and nuclear contours can easily be corrected using simple mouse operations, so pathologists can easily estimate 3-D nuclear density which is independent of the specimen's thickness.