COMPUTER SUPPORTED REVIEW OF TUMORS IN HISTOLOGY IMAGES AND POST OPERATIVE TUMOR MARGIN ASSESSMENT

A computer apparatus and method for identifying and visualizing tumors in a histological image and measuring a tumor margin are provided. A CNN is used to classify pixels in the image according to whether they are determined to relate to non-tumorous tissue, or one or more classes for tumorous tissue. Segmentation is carried out based on the CNN results to generate a mask that marks areas occupied by individual tumors. Summary statistics for each tumor are computed and supplied to a filter which edits the segmentation mask by filtering out tumors deemed to be insignificant. Optionally, the tumors that pass the filter may be ranked according to the summary statistics, for example in order of clinical relevance or by a sensible order of review for a pathologist. A visualization application can then display the histological image having regard to the segmentation mask, summary statistics and/or ranking. Tumor masses extracted by resection are painted with an ink to highlight its surface region. The CNN is trained to distinguish ink and no-ink tissue as well as tumor and no-tumor tissue. The CNN is applied to the histological image to generate an output image whose pixels are assigned to the tissue classes. Tumor margin status of the tissue section is determined by the presence or absence of tumor-and-ink classified pixels. Tumor margin involvement and tumor margin distance are determined by computing additional parameters based on classification-specified inter-pixel distance parameters.