Automatic tracking of labeled red blood cells in microchannels. (12th November 2012)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pinho, Diana; Lima, Rui; Pereira, Ana I.; Gayubo, Fernando
• Other Names: Tavares João Manuel R. S. guestEditor.; Jorge Renato Natal guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: International journal for numerical methods in biomedical engineering. Volume 29:Number 9(2013:Sep.)
• Page Start: 977
• Page End: 987
• Publication Date: 2012-11-12
• Subjects: image analysis -- automatic method -- red blood cells -- microcirculation -- in vitro blood flow -- microchannels; Biomedical engineering -- Periodicals; Imaging systems in medicine -- Periodicals; Numerical analysis -- Periodicals; Engineering mathematics -- Periodicals; 610.28
• DOI: 10.1002/cnm.2526
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-7939

Abstract

SUMMARY: The current study proposes an automatic method for the segmentation and tracking of red blood cells flowing through a 100‐ μm glass capillary. The original images were obtained by means of a confocal system and then processed in MATLAB using the Image Processing Toolbox. The measurements obtained with the proposed automatic method were compared with the results determined by a manual tracking method. The comparison was performed by using both linear regressions and Bland–Altman analysis. The results have shown a good agreement between the two methods. Therefore, the proposed automatic method is a powerful way to provide rapid and accurate measurements for in vitro blood experiments in microchannels. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Abstract : The current study proposes an automatic method for segmentation and tracking of red blood cells flowing through a 100‐ μm glass capillary. The original images were obtained by means of a confocal system and then processed in MATLAB using the Image Processing Toolbox. The measurements obtained with the proposed automatic method were compared with the results determined by a manual tracking method. The comparison was performed by using linear regressions and Bland‐Altman analysis. The results showed a good agreement between the two methods.