Image analysis in immunohistochemistry. Factors with a possible influence on the performance of VIDAS version 2.0, a commercially available true color image analysis system.

This paper describes the evaluation of several factors with a possible influence on the performance of a commercially available image analysis system capable of true color image analysis. The software used by this system is VIDAS Version 2.0. The following factors were evaluated: illumination, power supply, warming up, shading correction, averaging of image intake, hue luminance and saturation images and relation of illumination to quantification of area percentage (area %) of positively staining structures. The first six factors were evaluated by using a macro, with which it is possible to obtain information on variations over the image and over time. The last factor was evaluated by repeated measurement of area % of positive staining in a routinely processed tissue section. In our setting, stability of illumination and warmup time of the camera appeared to be the most important factors with influence on the performance of the image analysis system.