title: Discrimination between benign and malignant prostate biopsies using three-dimensional chromatin texture analysis by confocal laser scanning microscopy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the clinical usefulness of computing three-dimensional (3-D) nuclear texture features on prostate biopsy specimens to discriminate among benign, prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN), and malignant specimens.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twelve prostate cancer biopsy specimens were selected, diagnosed as either benign (N = 4), PIN (N = 4), or malignant (N = 4). Sections 14 microm thick were stained. 3-D image stacks of selected benign and malignant areas were obtained by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and analyzed off-line using in-house-developed software for 3-D semiautomated segmentation and calculation of texture features. The power of the 3-D texture features to discriminate among the pooled benign (N = 1,507), PIN (N = 673), and malignant nuclei (N = 1,251) was established by multivariate linear discriminant analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 68.8% of the benign nuclei, 77.2% of the PIN nuclei, and 78.5% of the malignant nuclei could be classified correctly after cross validation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Quantification of changes in the distribution of nuclear chromatin by means of 3-D texture feature computation on CLSM images allows discriminating most benign and malignant prostate nuclei, which could be useful in cases that are difficult to diagnose morphologically.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University Medical Center Utrecht, P.O. Box 85500, 3508 GA Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Huisman
authors.forename: Lennert S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Ploeger
authors.forename: Hub F J
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Dullens
authors.forename: Trudy N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Jonges
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: van Diest
mesh_terms: D001706:Biopsy; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000473:pathology; D002843:Chromatin / Q000473:pathology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000379:methods*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D019048:Prostatic Intraepithelial Neoplasia / Q000473:pathology*; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin