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Quantifying Fibrosis with AI: Towards Faster and More Objective Diagnosis

Writer's picture: PathyPathy

Updated: Apr 18, 2023

What is Fibrosis and why is it important to diagnose it accurately?

  • Fibrosis is a scarring process in tissue caused by the accumulation of collagen proteins and is a common feature of many chronic diseases.

  • Accurate and timely diagnosis of fibrosis is crucial for the effective treatment and management of these diseases.

What are the traditional methods for diagnosing fibrosis?

  • Traditionally, fibrosis is diagnosed based on the visual examination of tissue samples by pathologists, who grade the severity of fibrosis using subjective scales such as the Ishak or METAVIR scoring systems.

  • To have an accurate quantification of fibrosis, a special stain is used: Trichrome staining which is a widely used technique in pathology that allows visualization of collagen fibers in blue, muscle fibers in red, and cytoplasm in yellow-green.

What are the challenges with traditional methods of diagnosing fibrosis?

  • The traditional approach is time-consuming, prone to inter-observer variability, and can miss subtle changes in fibrosis progression.

  • There is a growing demand for more quantitative and standardized methods for fibrosis diagnosis, especially in the context of clinical trials and drug development.

What is the solution being developed for diagnosing fibrosis?

  • Our AI-based model can automatically quantify fibrosis in trichrome-stained histopathology slides of the Kidney.

  • The model is trained on a dataset of kidney tissue slides annotated in collaboration with an 8-year fibrosis researcher and a pathologist.

  • The model aims to enable users to select a region of interest in the slide and get a quantification of the percentage of low, medium, and high fibrosis in that region.

What are the benefits of the proposed solution?

  • The model reduces the subjectivity and variability of fibrosis diagnosis and provides faster and more objective results for clinicians and researchers.

  • The model provides a quantitative score that can be easily converted into clinically validated scores, such as the Banff Lesion Score, a widely accepted scoring system for kidney fibrosis.

What is the vision for expanding the solution?

  • The vision is to extend the model to other organs, such as the lung and liver, and potentially use other staining techniques, such as H&E staining.

  • By building a platform with an extensive model library for pathology, the goal is to provide a comprehensive and scalable solution for automated diagnosis and quantification of fibrosis and other pathological features across different organs and staining techniques.

What is the potential impact of this solution?

  • The model has the potential to revolutionize the way fibrosis is diagnosed and managed by providing a faster, more accurate, and more objective method that can improve patient outcomes and accelerate drug development.

  • The platform, which we plan to grow even further, can be a game-changer in the field of pathology and has the potential to bring innovative solutions to research labs and hospitals looking to advance the field of pathology.

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