Automatic detection of beating cilia with frequencies estimations

Muco-ciliary clearance is the airway first mechanism of defence against environmental attacks such as microorganisms or pollution. Cilia motility impairment can be either of genetic (primary ciliary dyskinesia) or acquired origin (environmental attacks), entailing chronic diseases. It is of interest for practitioners to evaluate cilia beating frequency easily, robustly and reliably. As yet, no fully automatized method is available. 2 Methods Ciliated cells were sampled in patients by brushing nasal mucosa and cilia beating was recorded using high speed video microscopy. We first estimated and removed the sensor pattern. We then stabilized the sequence assuming rigid transforms. We retained only the moving parts of the sequence and, after deblurring, characterized and segmented the moving parts in several regions of interest. The frequency was estimated for each region.