Carl Zeiss Microimaging Gmbh

Chromavision Medical Systems, Inc.

Clarient Gmbh

Thomas J Riding

James W Douglass

James E Ring

Gina Marie McLaren

Robert T Ellis

William J Decker

A method including acquiring images of medical slides at a plurality of different focus positions, determining a position which produces a maximum value of pixel values relative to a pixel value mean, wherein said determining comprises using a pixel value mean as a coarse estimate of coarse focus position, and subsequently refining said coarse focus position to find a fine focus position, and wherein said refining comprises fitting to a polynomial, and using a specified portion of the polynomial as a fine estimate of focus position, and producing a focus control signal that is related to said maximum value to control a focus position.

Method and apparatus for automated image analysis of biological specimens

A method, system, and apparatus are provided for automated light microscopic for detection of proteins associated with cell proliferative disorders.

Automated detection of objects in a biological sample

A method and apparatus for automated cell analysis of biological specimens automatically scans at a low magnification to acquire images which are analyzed to determine candidate cell objects of interest. The low magnification images are converted from a first color space to a second color space. The color space converted image is then filtered. The candidate interest pixels are morphologically processed and compared to blob parameters to identify candidate objects of interest which correspond to cells or other structures relevant to medical diagnosis of the biological specimen. The location coordinates of the objects of interest are stored and additional images of the candidate cell objects are acquired at high magnification.

A method and apparatus for automated cell analysis of biological specimens automatically scans at a low magnification to acquire images which are analyzed to determine candidate cell objects of interest. The low magnification images are converted from a first color space to a second color space. The color space converted image is then low pass filtered and compared to a threshold to remove artifacts and background objects from the candidate object of interest pixels of the color converted image. The candidate object of interest pixels are morphologically processed to group candidate object of interest pixels together into groups which are compared to blob parameters to identify candidate objects of interest which correspond to cells or other structures relevant to medical diagnosis of the biological specimen. The location coordinates of the objects of interest are stored and additional images of the candidate cell objects are acquired at high magnification. The high magnification images are analyzed in the same manner as the low magnification images to confirm the candidate objects of interest which are objects of interest. A high magnification image of each confirmed object of interest is stored for later review and evaluation by a pathologist.

The system and method for evaluating the amount of marker identifying precipitate in a cellular specimen on a microscope slide is disclosed. The automated microscope system performs a low magnification and high magnification scan of a cellular specimen to identify and confirm candidate objects of interest which correspond to cells containing a marker identifying precipitate. A regularly shaped area centered about a centroid computed for a candidate object of interest is used to define the pixels to be processed. A color ratio is computed for each pixel and those color ratios indicative of being dominated by the color corresponding to the marker identified precipitate are summed and normalized. The normalized color ratio is compared to at least one predetermined threshold to assign a grade to the candidate objects of interest. The grades for a predetermined number of candidate objects of interest are summed to form an aggregate score and the aggregate score is compared to a threshold. If the aggregate score exceeds a threshold, the candidate object of interest is determined to indicate the medical condition typically associated with the marker.

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West Melbourne, FL, United States of America

Thomas J Riding