Monday 30 May 2016

Assessment of Hepatic Fibrosis by Image Analysis Software in relation to Physiological Markers. -

Background: The chronic liver disease is one of the most deadly diseases in Egypt and around the world; perfect diagnosis methods are urgently needed. The proper assessment of liver fibrosis offers acute information for both perfect diagnosis and accurate therapeutic decision-making. Although digital image analysis (DIA) is a promising method for quantitative assessment of liver fibrosis, it has not been fully evaluated in practice yet. The present study was designed to explore the possibilities of using open access image analysis software (ImageJ) for accurate quantitative assessment of liver fibrosis. Methods: This study investigated the use of digital images analysis by software ImageJ of liver sections stained by sirius red (SR). Reproducibility of this technique was tested in comparison with the a semi-quantitative score of liver fibrosis as well as other markers of fibrosis including physiological markers of liver functions such as alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT). In addition, it was tested compared to serum marker collagen IV (Col IV) and hepatic hydroxyproline. Results: From physiological point of view; hepatic hydroxyproline, serum Col IV and ALT showed higher accuracy, sensitivity and specificity than other physiological markers with area under curve (AUC) of 0.935, 0.955 and 0.902 respectively. On the other hand, DIA of SR by ImageJ software had shown the best accuracy with AUC of 1.0. In conclusions: our novel data prove that the use of ImageJ with semiautomatic color segmentation is a reliable and practical way of measuring collagen proportionate area. - See moreat

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