Automatic metaphase finding by inter-chromosome extrema profile analysis

In this paper we report our experiences with a new texture coarseness measure, as a step towards automation of metaphase finding in cell proliferation studies. This measure is highly specific to grey-level inter-chromosome coarseness features in microscopic images of metaphase spreads, and allows to quantify the texture of the cytological objects analysing the intensity profile between chromosome-extrema samples. Chromosome fragments produce patterns of pixels at low-resolution, and the local neighbourhood of their individual extrema presents a characteristic coarseness, along intensity profiles on random-oriented test lines. Results of its use on images of fields of metaphases and artefacts are compared with some representative texture measures, outperforming metaphase detection and artefacts elimination. This coarseness feature provides a specific metaphase signature that can be used in conjunction with other morphological and textural parameters for automated metaphase discrimination.