System for automated histopathological image analysis using in-depth, multi-stage extraction of cellular features

Abstract

A system for automated histopathological image analysis using deep, multiscale cellular feature extraction, comprising: a slide digitizing unit configured to receive a glass histological slide and generate a high-resolution digital image using an optical imaging arrangement consisting of an illumination source, a lens assembly, and an image sensor; a preprocessing unit operationally coupled to the slide digitizing unit and configured to perform stain normalization, color separation, and artifact suppression on the digital image; and a patch generation unit configured to segment the digital image into a multitude of image patches with different magnification levels.a hierarchical feature extraction unit consisting of a plurality of convolutional processing layers arranged in parallel paths, each path configured to process image sections according to a specific spatial resolution to extract cellular and structural features; a feature aggregation unit configured to combine feature representations obtained from a plurality of parallel paths using an adaptive weighting mechanism; and a classification unit configured to receive the aggregated feature representation and generate a diagnostic output corresponding to one or more pathological classes.