Histopathology slides, on the other hand, provide a more comprehensive view of disease and its effect on tissues, since the preparation process preserves the underlying tissue architecture. As such, some disease characteristics, e.g., lymphocytic infiltration of cancer, may be deduced only from a histopathology image. Additionally, the diagnosis from a histopathology image remains the ‘gold standard’ in diagnosing considerable number of diseases including almost all types of cancer.
The additional structure in these images, while providing a wealth of information, also presents a new set of challenges from an automated image analysis perspective. It is expected that the proper leverage of this spatial information will allow for more specific characterizations of the imagery from a diagnostic perspective.