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Abstract - Currently, the conventional method of manual counting under a microscope affords a time-consuming, susceptible to error procedure and put an intolerable amount of stress to medical laboratory technicians. As a solution to this problem, this paper proposed an image processing technique for automatic counting the number of blasts present in the slide of leukemia. In automatic process, the segmentation technique for white blood cell (WBC) is one of most crucial stages. Segmentation based on HSV (Hue, Saturation and Value) color space will be used in order to eliminate the white blood cells (WBC) from the background. A simple morphological operator such as erosion plays importance role especially for the overlapping cells. The experimental results show that the proposed system has provided the highest average accuracy of 97.8% for counting both ALL and AML cases.
Keywords - Acute Leukemia, Blasts, Segmentation, HSV Color Space, Erosion, Counting
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1. Introduction
Leukemia is a type of blood cancer involving white blood cells. It is a bone marrow disorder that arises when abnormal white blood cell begins to continuously replicate itself [1]. These cells do not function normally which is to fight off infections. As they accumulate, they inhibit the production of other normal blood cells in the marrow, leading to anemia, bleeding, and recurrent infections. Over time, the leukemic cells spread through the bloodstream where they continue to divide, sometimes forming tumors and damaging organs such as the kidney and liver. Acute leukemia is classified according to the French-American- British (FAB) classification into two types: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML). Acute leukemia is a rapidly progressing disease that affects mostly cells that are unformed (not yet fully developed or differentiated) [2]. ALL is most common in children while AML mainly affects adults but can occur in children and adolescents.
In 2009, it is estimated that approximately 31,490 individuals will be diagnosed with leukemia and 44,510 individuals will die of the disease in the United States [3]. In Malaysia, a total of 529 cancer cases of Myeloid Leukemia and 433 cases of Lymphatic Leukemia were reported comprising 4.5% of the total number of cancers in Peninsular Malaysia in 2003 and registered under National Cancer Registry. Out of...