CELL IMAGE SEGMENTATION METHOD AND A NUCLEAR-TO-CYTOPLASMIC RATIO EVALUATION METHOD USING THE SAME

摘要

A cell image segmentation method includes receiving a cell image, performing a nuclei initialization step to find an internal marker and an external marker to obtain a potential nuclei and a potential cell boundary, calculating a gradient map of the received cell image, performing a filtering step on the gradient map to generate a filtered gradient map, performing a nuclei detection step to obtain a segmented nuclei, and performing a nuclei validation step to obtain a valid nuclei. The nuclei initialization step includes performing a blob detection step to obtain a nuclei candidate, an outlier removal step to obtain the internal marker, a distance transform step to obtain a distance map, and a cell boundary initialization step to obtain the external marker. In another embodiment, a nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio evaluation method using the above cell image segmentation method is proposed.

主权项

1. A cell image segmentation method, as performed by a processor of a computer system, comprising:
receiving a cell image; performing a nuclei initialization step to find an internal marker and an external marker to obtain a potential nuclei and a potential cell boundary corresponding to the potential nuclei; calculating a gradient map of the received cell image; performing a filtering step on the gradient map to generate a filtered gradient map according to the potential nuclei and the potential cell boundary; performing a nuclei detection step by calculating watersheds of the filtered gradient map to obtain a segmented nuclei; performing a nuclei validation step by preserving a part of the segmented nuclei with relatively higher compactness and excluding another part of the segmented nuclei with relatively lower compactness to obtain a valid nuclei, wherein the nuclei initialization step comprises: performing a blob detection step to obtain a nuclei candidate; performing an outlier removal step to exclude an outlier of the nuclei candidate to obtain the internal marker; performing a distance transform step of the internal marker to obtain a distance map; and performing a cell boundary initialization step to obtain the external marker from the distance map.