Detection of underlying characteristics of nuclear chromatin patterns of thyroid tumor cells using texture and factor analyses

Abstract

Background: Aspiration biopsy cytology of thyroid tumors has been used more frequently in recent times to differentiate between malignant and benign lesions. Chromatin patterns of the tumor cell nuclei are one of most important factors for cytologic diagnosis. The interpretation of nuclear chromatin patterns is subjective and more difficult than that of nuclear size or shape. In the present report, we investigated how to detect underlying chromatin characteristics of benign and malignant thyroid tumor cells by means of texture and factor analyses. Methods: We employed a computer-aided system in which light microscopy was combined with an image processor and monochrome camera. Using this system, 100 randomly selected cells in a Papanicolaou stained, aspiration biopsy cytologic smear in each case of 39 benign and malignant thyroid tumor cases were digitized. We applied two-dimensional and higher texture analyses with the use of co-occurrence and run-length matrices to analyze the chromatin patterns. Factor analysis was used to determine whether a large number of independent variables actually measured one or more underlying common variables.

Thyroid follicular adenomas may display features of follicular carcinoma and follicular variant of papillary carcinoma

“…Its sensitivity for the diagnosis of malignancy (95%) matched previous results (26). The accuracy for the diagnosis of tumor type was 86.6%, confirming studies showing that it is possible to distinguish nuclei of FA, FC and PC by morphometric analysis (29). Interestingly, when applied to the analysis of typical follicular tumors, the three types of nuclei (FAc, FCc, PCc) were all present in varying proportions in the three classes of tumors (FA, FC and FVPC), although with a majority of corresponding nuclei in 26/30 cases.…”

Discriminant Analysis between Malignant Mesothelioma and Reactive Mesothelium Using Nuclear Three-Dimensional Analysis Is Useful for Morphologically Suspicious Cases

“…2). In addition, euchromatin (fine chromatin) was shown to increase in malignant cells with nuclei that had higher proliferative activity [24]. MM showed lower nuclear 3D-CV than RM, which suggested smaller 3-dimensional variations in nuclear chromatin and increased filling of fine chromatin.…”

Discriminant Analysis of Malignant Mesothelioma and Reactive Mesothelium Using Three-Dimensional Nuclear Estimation

“…This demonstrates that the nuclear chromatin of MM is uniformly dispersed. Morphologically, well-differentiated cancer cells present with a less enlarged nuclear surface and fine chromatin [30], and the nuclei are filled with uniformly dispersed euchromatin. On the other hand, poorly differentiated cancer cells present with more severe dyskaryosis and granular nuclear chromatin [30].…”

“…Morphologically, well-differentiated cancer cells present with a less enlarged nuclear surface and fine chromatin [30], and the nuclei are filled with uniformly dispersed euchromatin. On the other hand, poorly differentiated cancer cells present with more severe dyskaryosis and granular nuclear chromatin [30]. Poorly differentiated cancer cells also display an electron-microscopically irregular nuclear membrane and non-uniform heterochromatin [31].…”