Abstract

ROMERO-RONDON, Miguel Fabián; SANABRIA-ROSAS, Laura Melissa; BAUTISTA-ROZO, Lola Xiomara  and  MENDOZA-CASTELLANOS, Alfonso. Algorithm for detection of overlapped red blood cells in microscopic images of blood smears. Dyna rev.fac.nac.minas [online]. 2016, vol.83, n.198, pp.187-194. ISSN 0012-7353.  https://doi.org/10.15446/dyna.v83n198.47177.

The hemogram is one of the most requested medical tests as it presents details about the three cell series in the blood: red series, white series and platelet series. To make some diagnostics, the specialist must undertake the test manually, observing the blood cells under the microscope, which implies a great physical effort. In order to facilitate this work, different digital image processing techniques to detect and classify red blood cells have been proposed. However, a common problem is the presence of overlapped cells, which generate various flaws in the analysis. Therefore, the implementation of an algorithm to address the problem of red blood cells overlapped in cellular smear images is proposed in order to support the clinician in the visual reading process. The method was tested with 50 images in which the indices of sensitivity and specificity were calculated, and the effectiveness of the algorithm developed was shown.

Keywords : digital image processing; hematology; Hough; k-means; overlap; red blood cells; watershed.

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