Patent Document ID: 8488863
Application ID: 12266450
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of analyzing an image of stained biological tissue material, the method comprising: (a) obtaining a first image of a stained biological tissue material using a microscope coupled to an image capture device; (b) inputting said first image into a computer processor; and (c) executing programming on the computer processor, said programming performing steps comprising: (i) performing a first level classification of said stained biological tissue material within said first image on a pixel by pixel basis by assigning a classification to each pixel; wherein said classification is based on a desired staining property of said stained biological tissue material or a desired spatial property of said stained biological tissue material or both; said staining and spatial properties comprising at least one of color, or texture, or an anomaly compared to the rest of said image, or pixel location within said image, or topological relationship between pixels, or connectivity relationship between pixels; and producing, on an output device, a second image comprising classified pixels; (ii) segmenting said classified pixels within said second image by applying a segmentation algorithm; wherein said segmenting is based on a desired staining property of said stained biological tissue material or a desired spatial property of said stained biological tissue material or both; said staining and spatial properties comprising at least one of contour, or color, or texture, or an anomaly compared to the rest of said image, or pixel location within said image, shape, or topological relationship between said classified pixels, or connectivity relationship between said classified pixels; agglomerating at least one set of said classified pixels whereby nuclear material objects, cytoplasm material objects, and stromal material objects in said stained biological tissue material is capable of being delineated; and producing, on the output device, a third image of said biological tissue material from agglomerated sets of classified and segmented pixels; and wherein said third image comprises at least one of delineated nuclear material objects, or delineated cytoplasm material objects, or delineated stromal material objects; (iii) classifying at least one of said objects within said third image from step (ii) on a second level object basis by assigning a classification to at least one of said objects within said third image from step (ii); wherein said classification is based on a desired staining property of said stained biological tissue material or a desired spatial property of said stained biological tissue material or both; said staining and spatial properties comprising at least one of contour, color, texture, an anomaly compared to the rest of said image, object location within said image, shape, topological relationship between said objects within said third image from step (ii), or connectivity relationship between said objects within said third image from step (ii); and producing, on the output device, a fourth image comprising at least one of classified delineated nuclear material objects, or classified delineated cytoplasm material objects, or classified delineated stromal material objects; (iv) segmenting at least one of said objects within said fourth image from step (iii) by applying a segmentation algorithm; wherein said segmenting is based on a desired staining property of said stained biological tissue material or a desired spatial property of said stained biological tissue material or both; said staining and spatial properties comprising at least one of contour, or color, or texture, or an anomaly compared to the rest of said image, or object location within said image, shape, or topological relationship between said objects within said fourth image from step (iii), or connectivity relationship between said objects within said fourth image from step (iii); agglomerating one or more sets of said objects within said fourth image from step (iii) in order to delineate cells or extracellular objects from said stained biological tissue material; and producing, on an output device, a fifth image of said stained biological tissue material from agglomerated sets of said classified and segmented objects within said fourth image from step (iii); wherein said fifth image comprises delineated cells or delineated extracellular objects or both; (v) generating information on at least one of histology, or cytopathology, or histopathology based on at least one of said second image or an image produced in a subsequent step, and providing the information to the user, wherein said information is capable of providing information beyond just distinguishing cell nuclei as cancerous or non-cancerous; and (vi) outputting said at least said generated information to an output device; wherein said generated information is available to the user.