Assessment of parathyroid gland cellularity by digital slide analysis.

BACKGROUND

Computer-aided examination of digital tissue images has attracted attention in recent years. Application in the field of parathyroid pathology has not been studied previously. It holds a potential to assist in the examination of parathyroid gland adenoma or hyperplasia.

OBJECTIVES

To explore parathyroid cell detection of slide images by digital tissue analysis and compare the results to standard human processing.

METHODS

47 incisional biopsies of healthy appearing parathyroid glands were evaluated for their cellularity level. First, by the standard examination using microscopy by three independent pathologists. We compared the mean cellularity grading of the pathologists to the output of a computerized cell detection software.

RESULTS

A disagreement was found between the standard human cellularity grading and the digital analysis output. However, the digital analysis reaches a 94% specificity and 48% sensitivity to predict high cellularity (>60% parenchymal cells).

CONCLUSIONS

Digital analysis of parathyroid tissue can be used as a tool for hypercellularity elimination, therefore assisting in the diagnosis of parathyroid cell hyperplasia. Additional studies using more advanced algorithms are necessary for further precision enhancement.