Niranjan Pandian Dayal Johan, Ramdas Anita, Ambroise M Moses
Department of Pathology, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Kalapet, Puducherry, India.
J Microsc Ultrastruct. 2021 Jan 22;9(3):114-118. doi: 10.4103/JMAU.JMAU_17_20. eCollection 2021 Jul-Sep.
Fineneedle aspiration cytology of the breast is well accepted and accurate for the diagnosis of benign and malignant lesions, however, it remains a subjective evaluation.
The present study was carried out to assess the utility of nuclear morphometry in differentiating benign and malignant breast aspirates. Importantly, we wanted to evaluate the utility of nuclear density parameters using Image J software.
Nuclear morphometry was carried out using image analysis software Image J 1.44 on 20 selected benign and malignant breast aspirates. Assessment was carried out on a total of 1000 cells in benign and 1000 cells in malignant aspirates counting 50 intact nuclei in nonoverlapping cells for each case. Six parameters including three size parameters, namely nuclear area, nuclear diameter, and nuclear perimeter; one shape parameter, i.e., axis ratio; and two nuclear chromasia parameters, namely density (integrated and raw), were measured.
There were significant differences between nuclear area, perimeter, diameter, integrated density, and raw integrated density of benign and malignant lesions. No significant difference was found for axis ratio. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that nuclear area, perimeter, diameter, integrated density, and raw integrated density are helpful in discriminating benign and malignant aspirates.
Thus, Image J is helpful in the evaluation of nuclear size as well as chromasia. We conclude that nuclear size and density parameters can be used to derive cutoff values of various parameters to differentiate between benign and malignant cells in breast cytology.
乳腺细针穿刺细胞学检查在良性和恶性病变诊断中已被广泛接受且准确性较高，然而，它仍是一种主观评估。
本研究旨在评估核形态计量学在鉴别乳腺穿刺液良性和恶性方面的效用。重要的是，我们想利用Image J软件评估核密度参数的效用。
使用图像分析软件Image J 1.44对20份选定的乳腺良性和恶性穿刺液进行核形态计量学分析。对每份病例中良性穿刺液的1000个细胞和恶性穿刺液的1000个细胞进行评估，在不重叠的细胞中计数50个完整细胞核。测量了六个参数，包括三个大小参数，即核面积、核直径和核周长；一个形状参数，即轴比；以及两个核染色参数，即密度（积分密度和原始密度）。
良性和恶性病变的核面积、周长、直径、积分密度和原始积分密度之间存在显著差异。轴比未发现显著差异。受试者工作特征曲线分析表明，核面积、周长、直径、积分密度和原始积分密度有助于鉴别良性和恶性穿刺液。
因此，Image J有助于评估核大小和染色情况。我们得出结论，核大小和密度参数可用于得出各种参数的临界值，以区分乳腺细胞学中的良性和恶性细胞。
