ViCE: An automated and quantitative program to assess intestinal tissue morphology

• Main Authors: Jeffrey La (Author), Krishnan Raghunathan (Author), Jocelyn A. Silvester (Author), Jay R. Thiagarajah (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Elsevier, 2024-12-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 2153-3539; 10.1016/j.jpi.2024.100397
• Keywords: Celiac disease; Color deconvolution; Histology; Image analysis; Mathematical morphology; Segmentation; Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics; R858-859.7; Pathology; RB1-214
• Source: Journal of Pathology Informatics, Vol 15, Iss , Pp 100397- (2024)

Background and objective: The tissue morphology of the intestinal surface is architecturally complex with finger-like projections called villi, and glandular structures called crypts. The ratio of villus height-to-crypt depth ratio (Vh:Cd) is used to quantitatively assess disease severity and response to therapy for intestinal enteropathies, such as celiac disease and is currently quantified manually. Given the time required, manual Vh:Cd measurements have largely been limited to clinical trials and are not used widely in clinical practice. We developed ViCE (Villus Crypt Evaluator), a user-friendly software that automatically quantifies histological parameters in standard hematoxylin and eosin-stained intestinal biopsies. Methods: ViCE is based on mathematical morphology operations and is scale and staining agnostic. It evaluates tissue orientation, identifies geometrical structure, and outputs key tissue measurements. Results: The output measurements of Vh:Cd are concordant with manual quantifications across multiple datasets. Conclusions: The underlying mathematical morphological approach for ViCE is robust, and reproducible and easily adaptable for measurement of morphological features in other tissues.