Patent Document ID: 9396532
Application ID: 14078958
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An automated method for detecting circulating tumor cells in a microscopic image of a blood sample, the method comprising: receiving, by a computer, a plurality of low-resolution images, each low resolution image providing a representation of the blood sample with one of a plurality of stains applied; determining, by the computer, a threshold value for each of the plurality of stains based on the low resolution images; identifying, by the computer, a list of potential circulating tumor cells based on the threshold values; performing, by the computer, a gating process on the list of potential circulating tumor cells to identify one or more likely or highly likely circulating tumor cells, the gating process further comprising: i) determining a circularity value for each potential circulating tumor cell; ii) for each potential circulating tumor cell, determining a median response for each of the plurality of staining channels; iii) determining a score for each potential circulating tumor cell based on its respective circularity value and respective median responses for each of the plurality of stains; iv) identifying the one or more likely or highly likely circulating tumor cells from the potential circulating tumor cells based the determined scores; and presenting, by the computer, the subset of the low-resolution images in a verification interface comprising one or more components allowing a user to confirm that a respective low-resolution image included in the subset of the low-resolution images includes one or more circulating tumor cells.