title: LIVER WHOLE SLIDE IMAGE ANALYSIS FOR 3D VESSEL RECONSTRUCTION.
abstract: The emergence of digital pathology has enabled numerous quantitative analyses of histopathology structures. However, most pathology image analyses are limited to two-dimensional datasets, resulting in substantial information loss and incomplete interpretation. To address this, we have developed a complete framework for three-dimensional whole slide image analysis and demonstrated its efficacy on 3D vessel structure analysis with liver tissue sections. The proposed workflow includes components on image registration, vessel segmentation, vessel cross-section association, object interpolation, and volumetric rendering. For 3D vessel reconstruction, a cost function is formulated based on shape descriptors, spatial similarity and trajectory smoothness by taking into account four vessel association scenarios. An efficient entropy-based Relaxed Integer Programming (eRIP) method is proposed to identify the optimal inter-frame vessel associations. The reconstructed 3D vessels are both quantitatively and qualitatively validated. Evaluation results demonstrate high efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method, suggesting its promise to support further 3D vessel analysis with whole slide images.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
authors.forename: Yanhui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
authors.forename: Fusheng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Tumor Biology, Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, Leeds LS9 7TF, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Darren
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Treanor
authors.affiliation: School of Computing, The University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Derek
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Magee
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Teodoro
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
authors.forename: Yangyang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kong
keywords: 3D Vessel Analysis; Digital Pathology; Vessel Reconstruction; Whole Slide Image Analysis