School of Clinical Medicine, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
Department of Pathology, Qingdao Central Hospital, Qingdao, China.
PLoS One. 2023 Jun 28;18(6):e0287704. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287704. eCollection 2023.
Protective color restoration of faded digital pathology images based on color transfer algorithm.
Twenty fresh tissue samples of invasive breast cancer from the pathology department of Qingdao Central Hospital in 2021 were screened. After HE staining, HE stained sections were irradiated with sunlight to simulate natural fading, and every 7 days was a fading cycle, and a total of 8 cycles were experienced. At the end of each cycle, the sections were digitally scanned to retain clear images, and the color changes of the sections during the fading process were recorded. The color transfer algorithm was applied to restore the color of the faded images; Adobe Lightroom Classic software presented the histogram of the image color distribution; UNet++ cell recognition segmentation model was used to identify the color restored images; Natural Image Quality Evaluator (NIQE), Information Entropy (Entropy), and Average Gradient (AG) were applied to evaluate the quality of the restored images.
The restored image color met the diagnostic needs of pathologists. Compared with the faded images, the NIQE value decreased (P<0.05), Entropy value increased (P<0.01), and AG value increased (P<0.01). The cell recognition rate of the restored image was significantly improved.
The color transfer algorithm can effectively repair faded pathology images, restore the color contrast between nucleus and cytoplasm, improve the image quality, meet the diagnostic needs and improve the cell recognition rate of the deep learning model.
基于颜色传递算法恢复褪色的数字病理学图像的保护色。
筛选 2021 年青岛中心医院病理科的 20 例浸润性乳腺癌新鲜组织样本。经 HE 染色后,将 HE 染色切片用阳光照射以模拟自然褪色,每个 7 天为一个褪色周期,共经历 8 个周期。在每个周期结束时,对切片进行数字扫描以保留清晰的图像,并记录切片在褪色过程中的颜色变化。应用颜色传递算法恢复褪色图像的颜色;Adobe Lightroom Classic 软件呈现图像颜色分布的直方图;UNet++ 细胞识别分割模型用于识别颜色恢复图像;自然图像质量评估器(NIQE)、信息熵(Entropy)和平均梯度(AG)用于评估恢复图像的质量。
恢复后的图像颜色满足病理学家的诊断需求。与褪色图像相比,NIQE 值降低(P<0.05),Entropy 值增加(P<0.01),AG 值增加(P<0.01)。恢复图像的细胞识别率显著提高。
颜色传递算法可有效修复褪色的病理学图像,恢复核质之间的颜色对比度,提高图像质量,满足诊断需求,提高深度学习模型的细胞识别率。