Me. Boon et al., PAPNET FOR ANALYSIS OF PROLIFERATING (MIB-1 POSITIVE) CELL-POPULATIONS IN CERVICAL SMEARS, European journal of morphology, 32(1), 1994, pp. 78-85
In diagnostic tumor pathology, immunohistochemical detection of prolif
erating cell populations is increasingly used. With the event of micro
wave-antigen retrieval it has become possible to detect proliferating
cells in cervical smears staining positive for MiB-1. We report that w
ith the PAPNET system, using neural network computing, it is possible
to collect from the smears the images with epithelial fragments contai
ning positive nuclei. We used this system for quantification of staini
ng results, Cases with carcinoma in situ contained many epithelial fra
gments having a large number of positive-staining nuclei and with labe
lling indices of 60 +/- 16. Dysplasias were often completely devoid of
cells with positive nuclei. In addition, we could not detect differen
ces between progressive and regressive dysplasias. Automatic prescreen
ing of immunostained smears using PAPNET is useful when it is desired
to quantify staining results.