Automated osteosclerosis grading of clinical biopsies using infrared spectroscopic imaging

Abstract

Osteosclerosis and myefibrosis are complications of myeloproliferative neoplasms. These disorders result in excess growth of trabecular bone and collagen fibers that replace hematopoietic cells, resulting in abnormal bone marrow function. Treatments using imatinib and JAK2 pathway inhibitors can be effective on osteosclerosis and fibrosis, therefore accurate grading is critical for tracking treatment effectiveness. Current grading standards use a four-class system based on analysis of biopsies stained with three histological stains: hematoxylin and eosin (H&E), Masson's trichrome, and reticulin. However, conventional grading can be subjective and imprecise, impacting the effectiveness of treatment. In this paper, we demonstrate that mid-infrared spectroscopic imaging may serve as a quantitative diagnostic tool for quantitatively tracking disease progression and response to treatment. The proposed approach is label-free and provides automated quantitative analysis of osteosclerosis and collagen fibrosis.

Polarization Sensitive Photothermal Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging of Human Bone Marrow Tissue

“…1 Since IR spectroscopy has been successful in diagnosing diseases where collagen structure plays an important role, such as breast carcinoma 17 and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, 18 we applied a similar approach to bone marrow biopsies. 19 Our previous study of bone marrow fibrosis 19 using FT-IR imaging was successful at classifying collagen type I and trabecular bone (type IV) in biopsies with 99% accuracy. However, MF grading accuracy was only 50% due to difficulty in categorizing abnormal growth of thin collagen fibers (2 µm diameter) with the limited spatial resolution of FT-IR.…”