Gland Instance Segmentation Using Deep Multichannel Neural Networks.

OBJECTIVE

A new image instance segmentation method is proposed to segment individual glands (instances) in colon histology images. This process is challenging since the glands not only need to be segmented from a complex background, they must also be individually identified.

METHODS

We leverage the idea of image-to-image prediction in recent deep learning by designing an algorithm that automatically exploits and fuses complex multichannel information-regional, location, and boundary cues-in gland histology images. Our proposed algorithm, a deep multichannel framework, alleviates heavy feature design due to the use of convolutional neural networks and is able to meet multifarious requirements by altering channels.

RESULTS

Compared with methods reported in the 2015 MICCAI Gland Segmentation Challenge and other currently prevalent instance segmentation methods, we observe state-of-the-art results based on the evaluation metrics.

CONCLUSION

The proposed deep multichannel algorithm is an effective method for gland instance segmentation.

SIGNIFICANCE

The generalization ability of our model not only enable the algorithm to solve gland instance segmentation problems, but the channel is also alternative that can be replaced for a specific task.