ABSTRACT
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in Canada. One in nine women will be affected by the disease, and at least one in 30 will eventually die from it. Pathology is the study of bodily tissues and cells under magnification in order to make a judgment on the state of disease. Immunohistochemical slides are assays that investigate biomarker presence or absence in a cellular structure. Hematoxylin is a bluish stain that has an affinity to acidic structures like nucleic acids. Eosin usually has an affinity to the background stroma and is generally colored pink. Automated image analysis systems for digital pathology images can generally be classified into preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction, and decision-making tools. Stain deconvolution is a powerful tool for separating specific chromatic components of an image, permitting isolated analysis of the structures stained by chromogen.
