Patent Document ID: 4523278
Application ID: 06618447
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for automatic classification of cells and determination of cell features from cytological smear preparations, on the basis of an original television image displaying a plurality of cell nuclear images, obtained by means of a television camera, wherein only the cell nuclei are used for evaluation, while irrelevant structures displayed in said original image are ignored, and wherein said classification and determination is based on a feature set consisting of topological parameters of the boundaries of said nuclei as displayed both in the original image and in one or more transformed images, the steps comprising (a) storing the original television images in memory as an array of image point gray scale values; (b) filtering the original images to suppress the scale values representing irrelevant structures, including structures beneath a predetermined size, thus obtaining filtered and transformed images; (c) establishing threshold values of the filtered images to determine relative gray value peaks thereby smoothing and simultaneously localizing cell nuclei as individual nuclear images; (d) determining the image points corresponding to the boundary of a nucleus as displayed in said nuclear image; (e) measuring one or more topological parameters of the boundary of said nucleus, as displayed in said original and transformed images, to obtain a set of features of said nucleus; (f) classifying said nucleus on the basis of said features set; and (g) repeating steps (c) through (f) for each individual nuclear image in said filtered image.