Quantitative nuclear image analysis: differentiation between normal, hyperplastic, and malignant appearing uterine glands in a paraffin section. IV. The use of Markov chain texture features in discriminant analysis.

Discriminant analysis was applied to Markov chain texture features and elementary features calculated from data from microscope photometry of nuclei in a paraffin section. The results from measurements on the nuclei of morphologically normal, atypical hyperplastic and carcinomatous uterine glands were used in discriminant analysis. With this technique it is possible to classify up to 88.1% of the nuclei correctly in one of the three groups of uterine glands. The discriminating power of several smaller subsets indicated that with more than 28 features there is hardly any increase in discriminating power. Discriminant analysis with a selection from elementary and Markov chain features provides objective criteria of assistance in histopathological diagnosis.