Scale-independent shape analysis for quantitative cytology using mathematical morphology

A system for automatic quantification of morphological changes of cell line s, proposed for cytotoxicity tests of biomaterials, is presented. Light-mic rographs of cultured cells are segmented by adaptive thresholding within a local adaptive window. Connected cells in binarized micrographs are separat ed by a novel morphological multiscale method, treating cells in their size -specific scale and hence resulting in scale-independent separations. Signi ficant shape descriptors correlating well with cell toxicity are extracted from single cells. Size and compactness distributions turned out to be reli able and useful parameters, providing an alternative to the common subjecti ve grading of shape deformations by visual inspection. The system is evalua ted for several standardized toxical reference substances and is now in use for clinical biocompatibility testing. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.