BioPEPR: a system for the automatic prescreening of cervical smears

Autor: P. S. Oud, R. T. Van de Walle, G. P. Vooys, Zahniser Dj, Raaijmakers Mc
Rok vydání: 1979
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry. 27:635-641
ISSN: 1551-5044
0022-1554
DOI: 10.1177/27.1.86581
Popis: A feasibility study has indicated that a Precision Encoding and Pattern Recognition (PEPR) cathode ray tube prescreening system for cervical smears can be both accurate and fast. Smears are prepared using a syringing technique and are stained with a Feulgen-type nuclear stain and a protein counterstain. The use of film as an intermediate step between the cells and Bio PEPR allows the scanning of fields as large as 8 x 8 mm. The morphological features of the cells are measured as directed by a hierarchical decision strategy. Additional programs detect artifacts, overlaps, and leukocyt.es. For clean samples, false positive and false negative rates on the cell level have been obtained that will allow acceptable smear level rates (10% false positive, 1% false negative). These rates have been reached without compromising the required speed goals of 120 to 180 smears per hr. The efficiency of the system is dependent on the quality of the smears. Measurements on a set of 192 routinely prepared smears indicate acceptable false negative rates and a false positive rate of about 18%. A reduction of this rate is expected with small improvements in cell preparation and measuring software, leading to the overall system efficiency required for commercial feasibility. A modified Precision Encoding and Pattern Recognition (PEPR) cathode ray tube (CRT) scanning system is being used to study the feasibility of developing a fully automatic system for the prescreening of cervical smears. PEPR devices have been in use since the early 1960’s in the field of highenergy physics for the scanning and measuring of photonegatives made from bubble chambers (5). A PEPR system at Nijmegen, renamed BioPEPR, has been developed into a general image analysis system. It incorporates not only the basic features of a PEPR system but also many additional features adopted from similar devices used in physics and medical research. The BioPEPR system is capable of the high resolution and multiple parameter analysis characteristic of image analysis systems (1, 6, 7) while scanning fields significantly larger than such systems. Furthermore, the scanning of large fields plus the use of two hardware scanning modes and a hierarchical decision strategy have resulted in a system speed approaching that of the flow systems (4, 9) Because the system was originally designed for the scanning of film, work with cervical cell measurements began with the scanning of photonegatives of fields from smears stained according to the Papanicolaou procedure (PAP). It soon became apparent that the scanning of photonegatives instead of the glass slides could lead to a significant improvement in the speed of the screening system, primarily because large fields could be scanned with the combination of a 9-inch CRT and 70-mm-wide roll ifim. Fields up to 64 mm2 can be scanned, as compared to fields of less than 1 mm2 with devices that scan slides directly. The use of film simplifies the scanning device and significantly reduces the number of fields that need to be scanned to between 4 and 6 per smear. Further
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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