Fractal dimension of chromatin texture of squamous intraepithelial lesions of cervix

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the role of fractal dimension (FD) of chromatin texture in routinely stained Papanicolaou's smears and to distinguish the different grades of cervical intraepithelial lesions and normal cervical cells. We selected 14 each cases of normal, low grade cervical intra epithelial lesions (LSIL), and high-grade cervical intra epithelial lesions (HSIL) of Papanicolaou's stained cervical smears. Fractal dimension of the pseudo three-dimensional grey image of the nuclear chromatin was measured in 140 nuclei of each group. Mean FD of the normal cases, LSIL cases, and HSIL cases were 2.4225 ± 0.06410, 2.5159 ± 0.03291, and 2.5905 ± 0.06840, respectively. ANOVA test showed significant differences of mean FD in all these three groups (P < 0.000). Fractal dimension of the chromatin texture is easy to perform and can be done in routinely stained Papanicolaou's smear. It is reproducible and gives valuable information about the chromatin texture of the nucleus. In future, this promising variable can be incorporated along with other image morphometric features for accurate classification of dysplastic cells in cervical smear.

Fractal Structure and Entropy Production within the Central Nervous System

“…Fractal studies on images of malignant tissues have revealed an increase in fractal dimension in malignant v.s normal tissue and an increase in fractal dimension/complexity with tumor grade in many different forms of cancer including brain [50,51], breast [52,53], cervical [52,54] and hepatocellular carcinomas [55]. These studies demonstrate the clinical potential of fractal analysis in the diagnosis and grading of malignant tumors.…”

“…Moreover, fractal studies have demonstrated a decrease in fractal dimension of the CNS with illness (i.e., Alzheimer's [42], epilepsy [23,24], MS [45], stroke [49]) which correlates with metabolic studies demonstrating a decline in glucose metabolism with illness [83,85,88,[90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][101][102][103]. Conversely, there are diseases which demonstrate an increase in fractal dimension including cancer [50][51][52][53][54][55] and grey matter structural changes in MS [46]. Of significance, these diseases which demonstrate an increase in fractal dimension also demonstrate an increase in glucose metabolism.…”

“…Advantages of such tracers include lower background activity in normal brain tissue and improved detection of low-grade tumors [111,[118][119][120]. In relation to fractal dimension, the hypermetabolism of cancer cells corresponds to the increase in fractal dimension in malignant tissue and with tumor grade in many different forms of cancer including brain [50,51], breast [52,53], cervical [52,54] and hepatocellular carcinomas [55]; and also corresponds to the increase in fractal dimension of tumor vasculature as seen in gliomas [50,51] and hepatocelluar carcinomas [55].…”

“…Does exercise preserve cardiovascular and pulmonary fractal structures, and thus helps preserve maximal oxygen metabolism? As reviewed above within the CNS, cancer appears to be associated with both augmented entropy production and fractal dimension, leading to harm to the host system, often due to overconsumption of energy substrate [50][51][52][53][54][55][104][105][106][107][108][109][112][113][114][115][116]. There is evidence that reducing glucose intake may help reduce progression of cancer, but is not a widely practiced [137][138][139].…”

From the slit-island method to the Ising model: Analysis of irregular grayscale objects

“…The analysis of the cell nuclei texture using fractals is an active research area (Metze, 2013;Dey and Banik, 2012). Nuclei of melanoma cells are analyzed by Bedin et al (2010) using a 3D box-counting algorithm.…”