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Color Normalization Approach to Adjust Nuclei Segmentation in Images of Hematoxylin and Eosin Stained Tissue

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Information Technology in Biomedicine (ITIB 2018)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 762))

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Abstract

Lack of standards in hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) tissue staining across laboratories is one of the reasons for differences in appearance of specimens under the microscope. It also negatively impacts the performance of digital image analysis algorithms, including nuclei segmentation that is deemed to be affected the most. To alleviate this problem, we searched through the color space to find color targets to which coloration of the original H&E image can be transferred with the goal to improve performance of a baseline nuclear segmentation method. Color targets that we found were plugged into the Reinhard’s color normalization algorithm to transfer the original H&E image to a new color space. The color-transferred images were then processed by two proposed approaches that subtract and subsequently threshold red and blue color channels. Implementation of these steps improved the amount of false positive pixels and splitting of clustered nuclei in the nuclear mask generated by the baseline method. The pixel-based segmentation accuracy was 94% in selected images. The performance was assessed in heterogeneous images of colon with manually delineated nuclei.

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Acknowledgement

This work was financed by the AGH – University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection as a part of a statutory project. The authors would like to thank Dr. Karolina Nurzynska for using her software to generate data for this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geoinformatics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology, A. Mickiewicza 30 Av., 30–059, Cracow, Poland

    Adam Piórkowski

  2. Department of Surgery, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, 90048, USA

    Arkadiusz Gertych

Authors
  1. Adam Piórkowski
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  2. Arkadiusz Gertych
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adam Piórkowski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Zabrze, Poland

    Ewa Pietka

  2. Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Zabrze, Poland

    Pawel Badura

  3. Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Zabrze, Poland

    Jacek Kawa

  4. Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Zabrze, Poland

    Wojciech Wieclawek

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Piórkowski, A., Gertych, A. (2019). Color Normalization Approach to Adjust Nuclei Segmentation in Images of Hematoxylin and Eosin Stained Tissue. In: Pietka, E., Badura, P., Kawa, J., Wieclawek, W. (eds) Information Technology in Biomedicine. ITIB 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 762. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91211-0_35

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