Patent · US Expired

System and method for cellular specimen grading

US6151405A · kind A · utility

108Cited by
9References
30Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 28, 1997
Grant dateNov 21, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 28, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01N2015/1472
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

The system and method for evaluating the amount of marker identifying precipitate in a cellular specimen on a microscope slide is disclosed. The automated microscope system performs a low magnification and high magnification scan of a cellular specimen to identify and confirm candidate objects of interest which correspond to cells containing a marker identifying precipitate. A regularly shaped area centered about a centroid computed for a candidate object of interest is used to define the pixels to be processed. A color ratio is computed for each pixel and those color ratios indicative of being dominated by the color corresponding to the marker identified precipitate are summed and normalized. The normalized color ratio is compared to at least one predetermined threshold to assign a grade to the candidate objects of interest. The grades for a predetermined number of candidate objects of interest are summed to form an aggregate score and the aggregate score is compared to a threshold. If the aggregate score exceeds a threshold, the candidate object of interest is determined to indicate the medical condition typically associated with the marker.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.