A quantitative analysis of the human bone marrow erythroblastic cell lineage using the SAMBA 200 cell image...

A quantitative image analysis of the normal maturation sequence for the human bone marrow erythroblastic lineage was performed using the SAMBA 200 cell image processor. The different image analysis steps (image acquisition, preprocessing, segmentation, parametrization and data analysis) are briefly described. Thirty-three parameters related to geometry, color, texture and densitometry were computed on 638 cell images belonging to the five erythroblastic maturation stages. The automated classification of these cells, based upon a stepwise linear discriminant analysis, resulted in 80% correctly classified cells. Acceptance of confusions between successive maturation stages enhanced the rate of correctly classified cells to 100%. Among the ten most discriminating parameters, the nuclear area showed the highest correlation with the changes throughout the maturation process. The projection of the maturation sequence onto the factorial plane resulting from the canonical analysis emphasizes the existence of three phases of the maturation process, a finding that correlates well with the cytologic evolution and the biochemical and functional events during the maturation. The trajectory of cells within this factorial plane is thus regarded as a differentiation path from which a measure of the maturation could be derived.