Patent ID: 8417015

Claim:
A method for automatically evaluating quality of a slide-mounted tissue sample comprising: receiving a digital image of a magnified portion of the slide-mounted tissue sample; automatically determining a pixel intensity of a plurality of pixels in the digital image; automatically determining at least one quantitative quality indicator of at least one of (i) the slide-mounted tissue sample, and (ii) the digital image of the magnified portion of the slide-mounted tissue sample based on the determined pixel intensities comprising measuring a value indicative of the at least one quantitative quality indicator of the slide-mounted tissue sample or measuring a value indicative of the at least one quantitative quality indicator of the digital image of the magnified portion of the slide-mounted tissue sample; and automatically determining whether the at least one quantitative quality indicator meets a respective minimum acceptable quality threshold, failure of the at least one quantitative quality indicator to meet its respective minimum acceptable quality threshold being indicative of at least one of the slide-mounted tissue sample and the digital image of the magnified portion of the slide-mounted tissue sample as considered unsuitable for automated pathological evaluation.