Segmentation and Morphometry of Histological Sections Using Deformable Models: A New Tool for Evaluating Testicular Histopathology

摘要

This paper presents a tool that uses image segmentation and morphometric methods to evaluate testicular toxicity through the analysis of histological sections of mice testis. The tool is based on deformable models (Snakes) and includes several adaptations to solve important difficulties of histological sections imaging, mainly the low contrast edges between the boundary tissue of seminiferous tubules and the interstitial tissue. The method is designed to produce accurate segmentation and to keep track of tubular identities on images under study. The extracted data can be used straightforwardly to compute quantitative parameters characterizing tubular morphology. The method was validated on a realistic data set and the results were compared with those obtained with traditional techniques. The application of this new technique facilitates measurements allowing assessing a higher number of tubules in a fastest and accurate way.