A Survey of Circulating Tumor Cells Segmentation and Classification Algorithms

Abstract

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are very small cells carried around the body in blood circulation. CTC is the origin for metastases which denotes the tumor cells move from the original location to other organs or parts of the body over blood circulation. The early detection of CTC cells is used for patient risk assessment and to appraise treatment outcomes. Recently, image processing-based solutions have received more achievement in the field of medicine. CTC detection in the micro-scope image requires more effort due to its size and intensity. This work surveys various image processing algorithms used in CTC detection. Also, reviews different machine and deep learning models used in medical image segmentation and classification.