Deep learning-based virtual staining, segmentation, and classification in label-free photoacoustic histology of human specimens

Chiho Yoon; Eunwoo Park; Sampa Misra; Jin Young Kim; Jin Woo Baik; Kwang Gi Kim; Chan Kwon Jung; Chulhong Kim

doi:10.1038/s41377-024-01554-7

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Deep learning-based virtual staining, segmentation, and classification in label-free photoacoustic histology of human specimens

Original Articles

- Deep learning-based virtual staining, segmentation, and classification in label-free photoacoustic histology of human specimens
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 13, Issue 10, Pages: 2353-2366(2024)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Departments of Electrical Engineering, Convergence IT Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Medical Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence, and Medical Device Innovation Center, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Republic of Korea
  2.Opticho Inc., Pohang, Republic of Korea
  3.Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Gachon Advanced Institute for Health Sciences and Technology (GAIHST), Gachon University, Incheon, Republic of Korea
  4.Cancer Research Institute, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  5.Department of Hospital Pathology, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Author bio：
  
  Chan Kwon Jung (ckjung@catholic.ac.kr)
  Chulhong Kim (chulhong@postech.edu)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-024-01554-7
  CLC：
- Published：31 October 2024，
  
  Published Online：02 September 2024，
  
  Received：31 January 2024，
  
  Revised：08 July 2024，
  
  Accepted：24 July 2024
- Accepted：
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Yoon, C. et al. Deep learning-based virtual staining, segmentation, and classification in label-free photoacoustic histology of human specimens. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 2353-2366 (2024).
DOI：

Yoon, C. et al. Deep learning-based virtual staining, segmentation, and classification in label-free photoacoustic histology of human specimens. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 2353-2366 (2024). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-024-01554-7.

摘要

Abstract

In pathological diagnostics

histological images highlight the oncological features of excised specimens

but they require laborious and costly staining procedures. Despite recent innovations in label-free microscopy that simplify complex staining procedures

technical limitations and inadequate histological visualization are still problems in clinical settings. Here

we demonstrate an interconnected deep learning (DL)-based framework for performing automated virtual staining

segmentation

and classification in label-free photoacoustic histology (PAH) of human specimens. The framework comprises three components: (1) an explainable contrastive unpaired translation (E-CUT) method for virtual H&E (VHE) staining

(2) an U-net architecture for feature segmentation

and (3) a DL-based stepwise feature fusion method (StepFF) for classification. The framework demonstrates promising performance at each step of its application to human liver cancers. In virtual staining

the E-CUT preserves the morphological aspects of the cell nucleus and cytoplasm

making VHE images highly similar to real H&E ones. In segmentation

various features (e.g.

the cell area

number of cells

and the distance between cell nuclei) have been successfully segmented in VHE images. Finally

by using deep feature vectors from PAH

VHE

and segmented images

StepFF has achieved a 98.00% classification accuracy

compared to the 94.80% accuracy of conventional PAH classification. In particular

StepFF's classification reached a sensitivity of 100% based on the evaluation of three pathologists

demonstrating its applicability in real clinical settings. This series of DL methods for label-free PAH has great potential as a practical clinical strategy for digital pathology.

关键词

Keywords

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