Extraction of glomeruli in whole slide imaging of kidney biopsy specimens

摘要

The pathological diagnosis of a transplanted kidney is made on Banff Classification in order to gain an accurate understanding of the condition of the kidney. This type of diagnosis is extremely difficult and, thus, a variety of methods for diagnosis, including diagnosis by electron microscope, are being considered at present. Quantification of the diagnostic information derived by image processing is required for such purposes. This study proposes an automatic extraction method for normal glomeruli for the purpose of quantifying Elastica Van Gieson(EVG)-stained pathology specimens. In addition, we provide a report on the package of methods that we have created for the extraction of the glomerulus in the cortex.