Patent Document ID: 9710908
Application ID: 14759924
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for assessing fibrosis in a tissue using a test image which is an image of the tissue, wherein the test image comprises a plurality of pixels having respective intensity values and wherein the method comprises: (1a) automatically identifying, from the test image, a portal collagen area, a septal collagen area and a fibrillar collagen area respectively comprising pixels representing portal collagen, septal collagen and fibrillar collagen of the tissue, the fibrillar collagen including collagen in both pen-cellular and peri-sinusoidal spaces; (1b) obtaining quantitative values of one or more features for each identified area based on characteristics of the identified area in the test image; and (1c) assessing fibrosis using the quantitative values obtained for all the identified areas; wherein operation (1a) further comprises: (A) identifying, from the test image, collagen pixels and lumen pixels respectively comprising pixels representing collagen and lumens of the tissue; and (B) segmenting the collagen pixels into the portal collagen area, septal collagen area and fibrillar collagen area based on relations between the collagen pixels and the lumen pixels, comprising: (Bi) performing the following operations (i) and (ii) for each lumen area: (i) for each line of a plurality of lines, wherein each line extends from a center of the lumen area to a pixel not comprised in the lumen area and wherein the plurality of lines are spaced apart by predetermined angles from one another around the center of the lumen area, identifying collagen pixels overlapping with the line; (ii) extracting, based on the collagen pixels identified for all the lines, a sub-septal collagen area comprising pixels representing septal collagen in the tissue; and (Bii) segmenting the collagen pixels by identifying the septal collagen area as comprising the sub-septal collagen areas extracted for all the lumen areas; wherein prior to operation (Bii), the method further comprises: identifying collagen pixels not comprised in the sub-septal collagen areas and connected to the sub-septal collagen areas as further collagen pixels representing septal collagen in the tissue; and updating the sub-septal collagen areas to include said identified further collagen pixels representing septal collagen in the tissue.