US 11,866,792 B2
Identifying candidate cells using image analysis with overlap thresholds
Huangpin B. Hsieh, Palo Alto, CA (US); XiaoMing Wang, Dublin, CA (US); Jr-Ming Lai, Taipei (TW); Rui Mei, Santa Clara, CA (US); Hung-Jen Shao, Taipei (TW); and Jen-Chia Wu, Taipei (TW)
Assigned to CellMax Ltd., Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Filed by CellMax Ltd., Grand Cayman (KY)
Filed on Sep. 8, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/940,625.
Application 17/940,625 is a division of application No. 16/740,799, filed on Jan. 13, 2020.
Application 16/740,799 is a continuation of application No. 15/998,990, filed on Aug. 20, 2018, granted, now 10,533,230, issued on Jan. 14, 2020.
Application 15/998,990 is a continuation of application No. 15/632,707, filed on Jun. 26, 2017, granted, now 10,053,739, issued on Aug. 21, 2018.
Application 15/632,707 is a continuation of application No. 15/476,848, filed on Mar. 31, 2017, granted, now 9,738,937, issued on Aug. 22, 2017.
Prior Publication US 2023/0002835 A1, Jan. 5, 2023
Int. Cl. G06K 9/00 (2022.01); C12Q 1/6886 (2018.01); G01N 15/14 (2006.01); G01N 33/574 (2006.01); G01N 33/50 (2006.01); G01N 1/31 (2006.01); G01N 33/58 (2006.01); C12Q 1/6883 (2018.01); G06T 7/00 (2017.01)
CPC C12Q 1/6886 (2013.01) [G01N 1/31 (2013.01); G01N 15/1475 (2013.01); G01N 33/5094 (2013.01); G01N 33/57484 (2013.01); G01N 33/582 (2013.01); C12Q 1/6883 (2013.01); G01N 15/1468 (2013.01); G01N 2015/1472 (2013.01); G01N 2333/4742 (2013.01); G01N 2333/70589 (2013.01); G06T 7/0012 (2013.01); G06T 2207/10056 (2013.01); G06T 2207/30096 (2013.01); G06T 2207/30101 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer program product for identifying candidate target cells within a biological fluid specimen, the computer program product tangibly embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium, comprising instructions to cause a processor to
receive a digital image of the biological fluid specimen, the digital image having a plurality of color channels, wherein
the biological fluid specimen comprises a given cell in which a nucleus is completely contained within cytoplasm, and
the digital image comprises a representative of the given cell that is recorded with a visual artifact causing the digital image to represent the nucleus as partially contained within the cytoplasm and partially outside of the cytoplasm;
identify first connected regions of pixels of a minimum first intensity in a first channel of the plurality of color channels;
identify second connected regions of pixels of a minimum second intensity in a second channel of the plurality of color channels;
determine first connected regions and second connected regions that contain connected pixels indicating at least a partial spatial overlap; and
for each of least one of one or more pairs of a first connected region and a second connected region that contain connected pixels indicating at least a partial spatial overlap, account for the visual artifact comprising determining whether the second connected region overlaps the first connected region by a threshold amount, and if the second connected region overlaps the first connected region by the threshold amount then continue to treat a portion of the image corresponding to the overlap of first connected region and the second connected region as a candidate for classification.