Lens-free automated cell detection system for telemedicine application

Abstract

Cell and micro particle analysis is one of the major tasks in many clinical labs culturing cells. The functional profiles of cells such as concentration, size, morphology and viability are the key parameters for early diagnosis of many diseases. However in most labs, especially in the resource limited settings, these processes are done fully manually using conventional optical microscopes, which are slow and prone to subjective errors. Recently the lens-free shadow imaging system has been introduced as an alternative for the conventional optical microscopy. In this paper we demonstrate a dedicated algorithm for lens-free shadow imaging system, which was implemented as a smartphone application. This android application can wirelessly acquire the images from the lens-free system and process them automatically. The results can be obtained locally or sent to a remote expert for further analysis. The feasibility of this system was evaluated by comparing the results with the standard optical microscope.