Measuring hepatocytes reaction to dimethylnitrosamine using computerized microscope

The authors present a computer image analysis system which yields a quantitative description of hepatocyte reaction to dimethylnitrosamine, a potent carcinogen to the liver. A computer equipped with image processing hardware and software developed inhouse was used to measure hepatocyte nuclei in pathological section from hamster livers exposed to the poison. The critical step which determined measurement accuracy was boundary finding. A local search algorithm with limited depth was utilized. This algorithm overcame failures of the boundary search in cases where strong cytoplasm edges or inner-nucleus granularities caused imprecise boundary formation. The results show the progression of damage to the nuclei sampled from hamsters in the continuous exposure group, and regression back to normal in the two withdrawal groups