Color Correction of Red Blood Cell Area in H&E Stained Images by Using Multispectral Imaging

The color of stained pathological images varies depending on staining conditions. Since pathologists based their diagnosis on changes in color and morphology of a particular tissue component, it is important that color variations in stained pathological images be corrected so as to obtain a more reliable diagnosis. A color correction for Hematoxylin & Eosin (H&E) stained images was proposed previously. However, the method did not successfully correct the color of red blood cell (RBC) but only the nucleus and cytoplasm. In this paper, a modified color correction method that can appropriately correct the color of RBC areas in H&E stained images is proposed. In the method, a different weighting coefficient was assigned to RBC areas, which was based from the averaged dye amount ratio in RBC areas in reference and test slides, and a new basis function was derived, in addition to the original three bases functions, to represent the change in the absorption coefficient in RBC areas. In the experiment, the effectiveness of the proposed method was shown with respect to the color difference between reference and test slides in CIE-LAB space.