Pathology imaging informatics for quantitative analysis of whole-slide images

With the objective of bringing clinical decision support systems to reality, this article reviews histopathological whole-slide imaging informatics methods, associated challenges, and future research opportunities.

This review targets pathologists and informaticians who have a limited understanding of the key aspects of whole-slide image (WSI) analysis and/or a limited knowledge of state-of-the-art technologies and analysis methods.

First, we discuss the importance of imaging informatics in pathology and highlight the challenges posed by histopathological WSI. Next, we provide a thorough review of current methods for: quality control of histopathological images; feature extraction that captures image properties at the pixel, object, and semantic levels; predictive modeling that utilizes image features for diagnostic or prognostic applications; and data and information visualization that explores WSI for de novo discovery. In addition, we highlight future research directions and discuss the impact of large public repositories of histopathological data, such as the Cancer Genome Atlas, on the field of pathology informatics. Following the review, we present a case study to illustrate a clinical decision support system that begins with quality control and ends with predictive modeling for several cancer endpoints. Currently, state-of-the-art software tools only provide limited image processing capabilities instead of complete data analysis for clinical decision-making. We aim to inspire researchers to conduct more research in pathology imaging informatics so that clinical decision support can become a reality.