http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8688-5270
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ABSTRACT
This paper presents an automatic pathology (AutoPath) approach to detect prostatic adenocarcinoma based on morphological analysis of high resolution whole mount (WM) histopathology images of the prostate. In the first stage of the cancer detection algorithm, a pre-screening of cancerous regions is performed at low magnification (5×) based on regional features. In the second stage, we propose a novel technique of labelling individual glands as benign or malignant using gland specific features at high magnification (20×). Two new features, Number of Nuclei Layers and Epithelial Layer Density, are proposed to label individual glands. We validate the approach on 70 WM slides, obtained from 30 patients, and achieve average sensitivity of 90%, specificity of 93% and accuracy of 93%. The main advantage of the approach is that detection of individual malignant gland units, irrespective of neighbouring histology and/or the spatial extent of the cancer, allows a finer annotation of cancer. The AutoPath method performs well on slides with low Gleason grades (3 and 4), but is currently limited in its ability to detect cancer in higher Gleason grades.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Sabrina Rashid
Sabrina Rashid is a PhD candidate at the Computational Biology Department at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science. She received her BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2011, and her MASc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2014.
Guy Nir
Dr. Guy Nir is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia. He received his BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 2006 and 2010, respectively, and his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UBC in 2015. He was awarded the Stewart McInnes Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship by Prostate Cancer Canada in 2016. His fields of research include biomedical imaging and image processing, machine learning, and medical robotics.
Ladan Fazli
Dr. Ladan Fazli is a research pathologist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and an Adjunct Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, UBC. She holds a medical degree and specialized in anatomical and clinical pathology at the National University of Iran. From 1999 to 2002, she was a research pathologist at Kinetek Pharmaceutical Inc, as part of target discovery group. Dr. Fazli’s main expertise is validation of prognostic and predictive prostate cancer biomarkers by immunohistochemical and chromogenic in situ hybridization studies on tissue microarrays of human tumor tissue samples.
Alexander H. Boag
Dr. Alexander (Sandy) Boag is an Associate Professor and Head, Pathology and Molecular Medicine at Queen’s University. Dr. Boag did a Masters of Applied Science at University of Toronto. He then attended medical school at Queen's, and a residency in Anatomic Pathology, also at Queen's. Dr. Boag then joined the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine as a faculty member in 1993. He served as Service Chief for Anatomical Pathology from 2001 to 2013. Dr. Boag is an active member Cancer Care Ontario. He has served as Clinical Director of the Cytology lab at Kingston General Hospital since 2008.
D. Robert Siemens
Dr. Robert Siemens is the Professor and Head, Department of Urology at Queen’s University. He obtained his MD from Queen’s University in 1992 and, following five years of postgraduate training at Queen’s, he completed a fellowship in oncology at the University of Iowa. He returned to Queen’s as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urology in 2000 and he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and granted tenure in 2006. In 2011, he was promoted to the rank of Professor.
S. Larry Goldenberg
Dr. S. Larry Goldenberg is a Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia. He is a urologic surgeon and clinical scientist with an international reputation for excellence in prostate cancer research and treatment. Dr. Goldenberg received his medical degree in 1978 from the University of Toronto. He is the former Head of Urologic Sciences at Vancouver General Hospital and UBC, and a co-founder of the Canadian Urologic Oncology Group, Vancouver Prostate Centre, and Canadian Men’s Health Foundation. He has been inducted into the Order of British Columbia and the Order of Canada for his contributions to healthcare.
Purang Abolmaesumi
Dr. Purang Abolmaesumi received his BSc (1995) and MSc (1997) from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, and his PhD (2002) from UBC, all in electrical engineering. From 2002 to 2009, he was a faculty member with the School of Computing, Queen’s University. He then joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC, where he is a Canada Research Chair, Tier II, in Biomedical Engineering and a Professor, with Associate Membership to the Department of Urologic Sciences.
Septimiu E. Salcudean
Dr. Septimiu (Tim) E. Salcudean recieved the B.Eng and M.Eng degrees from McGill University and the Ph.D. degree from U.C. Berkeley, all in Electrical Engineering. From 1986 to 1989, he was a Research Staff Member in the robotics group at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. He then joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, where he holds the Laszlo Chair in Biomedical Engineering and a Canada Research Chair.