Comparative analysis of methods for accurate recognition of cells through nuclei staining of Ki-67 in neuroblastoma and estrogen/progesterone status staining in breast cancer.

Objective: To compare 2 automatic systems for the recognition and counting of 2 different families of cells through nuclei staining: Ki-67 in neuroblastoma and estrogen/progesterone (ER/PR) status staining in breast cancer.

Study Design: Morphology-based segmentation strategies and the Support Vector Machine approach have been used for the accurate extraction and recognition of the cells. To achieve the highest possible accuracy, 2 specialized systems specially suited for Ki-67 and ER/PR staining have been developed.

Results: The testing set of histologic slides of Ki-67 and ER/PR staining has been assessed by our system and the results compared to the score of a human expert. The results are in good agreement. The average differences are within the acceptable limits of 10%. The main advantage of the system is its absolute repeatability of scores.

Conclusion: The proposed computer-assisted automatic system of cell extraction and recognition through nuclei staining has confirmed sufficient accuracy for the tested images and may provide a useful tool for cell recognition and counting on the basis of histologic slides with Ki-67 and ER/PR staining.