IMAGE-ANALYSIS IN IMMUNOHISTOCHEMISTRY - FACTORS WITH A POSSIBLE INFLUENCE ON THE PERFORMANCE OF VIDAS VERSION-2.0, A COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE TRUE COLOR IMAGE-ANALYSIS SYSTEM

This paper describes the evaluation of several factors with a possible influence on the performance of a commercially available image analys is system capable of true color image analysis. The software used by t his system is VIDAS Version 2.0. The following factors were evaluated: illumination, power supply, warming up, shading correction, averaging of image intake, hue luminance and saturation images and relation of illumination to quantification of area percentage (area%) of positivel y staining structures, The first six factors were evaluated by using a macro, with which it is possible to obtain information on variations over the image and over time. The last factor was evaluated by repeate d measurement of area% of positive staining in a routinely processed t issue section. In our setting, stability of illumination and warmup ti me of the camera appeared to be the most important factors with influe nce on the performance of the image analysis system.