Implementation of an automated system for microscope pathological section image with RFID management

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to establish an automated microscopic imaging database system using a set of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) management functions to provide a secure storage for hispathology images.

Design/methodology/approach

The automated microscopy imaging system is composed mainly of four parts, which include: first, tissue biopsy image acquisition system, second, image processing system, third, RFID system, and fourth, SQL database system. The system has two modes of operation to store and manage hispathology images. First, the hispathology slide undergoes fluorescence staining before acquiring images directly from an external CCD camera connected to the system. Second, the hispathogical slides that have undergone fluorescence staining undergo another microscopic imaging system, and the contents are extracted into a digitized image archive and imported to the system. Also, the system not only acquires images but also performs functions such as displacement correction, image superimposition, and calculation of the total number of fluorescence points. The two methods mentioned above produce the hispathology image files and are tagged using an RFID string index to establish and manage the database system.

Findings

The results demonstrated that in the impurities were effectively eliminated in the red fluorescence staining after binarization processing. However, the blue ones remained the same and to solve this problem an adjustable threshold allows users to select the appropriate threshold. Using an additional eigenvalue code to the RFID string provides better encryption mechanism for the patient files and any attempt to tamper the file can easily be detected through the comparison of the eigenvalues.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a novel method to implement a more comprehensive, safe, fast, and automated management system for hispathological images using RFID management and image processing techniques. Additional security is provided by including eigenvalues as encryption mechanisms in the Tag string of the RFID.

Citation

Chen, P.-J., Yeng, C.-H., Lu, M.-M. and Chen, S.-H. (2014), "Implementation of an automated system for microscope pathological section image with RFID management", Engineering Computations, Vol. 31 No. 8, pp. 1691-1708. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-11-2012-0291