Pathological signal quantitative analysis using quaternion-based image processing

Abstract

Nowadays, IVF-ET (In Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer) has become one of the best choices to treat infertility. For IVF-ET, the successful rate largely depends on the receptivity of the endometrium, while there is potential application of digital image processing to help the automatic assessment of the receptivity of the endometrium. This paper studies proper methods to get quantitative analysis of HE (Hematoxylin-Eosin) staining medical images in the womb, including the number, density, area and perimeter of the glands. Instead of using monochrome analysis for color images, we represent the color medical images in the form of quaternion matrix to well preserve interrelationship between color channels. Quaternion Singular Value Decomposition (QSVD) is imposed on quaternion matrix to conduct dimension reduction of color vector data and to obtain color texture segmentation using k-means technique. Quaternion-based edge detection and pattern matching are then implemented on segmentation results to locate glands. Consequently, the quantitative analysis is available based on the extracted glands. Rather than reading a large number of medical images all by themselves, doctors can provide diagnosis more efficiently and more accurately using the proposed automatic quantitative analysis of pathological signal. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.