0000000000220241

AUTHOR

Alessandro Fauci

Preliminary results of the project A.I.D.A. (Auto Immunity: Diagnosis Assisted by computer)

In this paper, are presented the preliminary results of the A.I.D.A. (Auto Immunity: Diagnosis Assisted by computer) project which is developed in the frame of the cross-border cooperation Italy-Tunisia. According to the main objectives of this project, a database of interpreted Indirect ImmunoFluorescence (IIF) images on HEp 2 cells is being collected thanks to the contribution of Italian and Tunisian experts involved in routine diagnosis of autoimmune diseases. Through exchanging images and double reporting; a Gold Standard database, containing around 1000 double reported IIF images with different patterns including negative tests, has been settled. This Gold Standard database has been us…

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Unsupervised clustering method for pattern recognition in IIF images

Autoimmune diseases are a family of more than 80 chronic, and often disabling, illnesses that develop when underlying defects in the immune system lead the body to attack its own organs, tissues, and cells. Diagnosis of autoimmune pathologies is based on research and identification of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) through indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) method and is performed by analyzing patterns and fluorescence intensity. We propose here a method to automatically classify the centromere pattern based on the grouping of centromeres on the cells through a clustering K-means algorithm. The described method was tested on a public database (MIVIA). The results of the test showed an Accuracy…

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Computer-Assisted Classification Patterns in Autoimmune Diagnostics: The AIDA Project.

International audience; Antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) are significant biomarkers in the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases in humans, done by mean of Indirect ImmunoFluorescence (IIF) method, and performed by analyzing patterns and fluorescence intensity. This paper introduces the AIDA Project (autoimmunity: diagnosis assisted by computer) developed in the framework of an Italy-Tunisia cross-border cooperation and its preliminary results. A database of interpreted IIF images is being collected through the exchange of images and double reporting and a Gold Standard database, containing around 1000 double reported images, has been settled. The Gold Standard database is used for optimization of …

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Comparative Study of Human and Automated Screening for Antinuclear Antibodies by Immunofluorescence on HEp-2 Cells

Background : Several automated systems had been developed in order to reduce inter-observer variability in indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) interpretation. We aimed to evaluate the performance of a processing system in antinuclear antibodies (ANA) screening on HEp-2 cells. Patients and Methods : This study included 64 ANA-positive sera and 107 ANA-negative sera that underwent IIF on two commercial kits of HEp-2 cells (BioSystems® and Euroimmun®). IIF results were compared with a novel automated interpretation system, the “ Cyclopus CADImmuno®” (CAD). Results : All ANA-positive sera images were recognized as positive by CAD (sensitivity = 100%), while 17 (15.9%) of the ANA-negative sera ima…

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