Quantitative Analysis of Renal Fibrosis Using a Colorimetric System

Abstract

Manual assessment of renal fibrosis via visual inspection represents a significant challenge even among expert pathologists. The goal of this project was to create a quantitative analysis program that could be used as a complementary tool for pathologists. The algorithm was applied to color images of renal needle core biopsy slides, at varying stages of disease, stained with either Masson's trichrome (MT) or collagen III immunohistochemistry (Coll3). Each image was split into colorimetric channels and the ratio of two of the corresponding channels was then compared to the overall tissue image. Results demonstrated that colorimetric ratios of red:blue for MT and green:red for Coll3 produced ranges between 1.3- 1.5 and 1.10-1.12, respectively, that successfully excluded non-fibrotic renal tissue and could therefore be used to create a quantitative analysis of renal fibrosis for comparison to pathologists' diagnosis.