Automatic Cytodiagnosis

Abstract

For the purpose of automatic screening of cytological smears, a new autoscanner was developed in the Center for Adult Diseases, Osaka.This apparatus of a light microscope, a TV camera as detector and a computer system. Light microscopic findings(size and density) of nuclei stained by Feulgen's reaction were transformed to video signal by means of TV camera. The amplitude and depth of video signal are calibrated by a computer. The thresholds of the amplitude and depth of video signal are previously determined by observing nuclei of malignant and non-malignant cells light micros scopically. When the information of a nucleus is over the thresholds, a signal lamp gives red sign as malignant.Up to now, vaginal smears of 160 cases were examined. All cases of uterine cancer were proved positive by this apparatus. However, a few false positive cases were experienced due to many clump ings of polymorphnuclear leucocytes in the smears. Now we are planning to improve this apparatus eliminating this disadvantage, and to develop ano ther autoscanner for mass-screening of gastric and lung cancers.