PAPNET FOR ANALYSIS OF PROLIFERATING (MIB-1 POSITIVE) CELL-POPULATIONS IN CERVICAL SMEARS

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.