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A new complete color normalization method for H&E stained histopatholgical images

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Abstract

The popularity of digital histopathology is growing rapidly in the development of computer aided disease diagnosis systems. However, the color variations due to manual cell sectioning and stain concentration make the process challenging in various digital pathological image analysis such as histopathological image segmentation and classification. Hence, the normalization of these variations are needed to obtain the promising results. The proposed research intends to introduce a reliable and robust new complete color normalization method, addressing the problems of color and stain variability. The new complete color normalization involves three phases, namely enhanced fuzzy illuminant normalization, fuzzy-based stain normalization, and modified spectral normalization. The extensive simulations are performed and validated on histopathological images. The presented algorithm outperforms the existing conventional normalization methods by overcoming the certain limitations and challenges. As per the experimental quality metrics and comparative analysis, the proposed algorithm performs efficiently and provides promising results.

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Correspondence to Sumit Kumar.

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Vijh, S., Saraswat, M. & Kumar, S. A new complete color normalization method for H&E stained histopatholgical images. Appl Intell 51, 7735–7748 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-021-02231-7

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