Helminth Egg Automatic Detector (HEAD): Improvements in development for digital identification and quantification of helminth eggs and their application online.

Helminth Egg Automatic Detector (HEAD): Improvements in development for digital identification and quantification of helminth eggs and their application online. Exp Parasitol. 2020 Aug 11;:107959 Authors: Jiménez B, Maya C, Velásquez G, Barrios JA, Perez M, Román A Abstract Helminths are parasitic worms that constitute a major public health problem. Conventional analytical techniques to evaluate helminth eggs in environmental samples rely on different steps, namely sedimentation, filtration, centrifugation, and flotation, to separate the eggs from a variety of particles and concentrate them in a pellet for direct observation under an optical microscope. To improve this process, a new approach was implemented in which various image processing algorithms were developed and implemented by a Helminth Egg Automatic Detector (HEAD). This allowed identification and quantification of pathogenic helminth eggs of global medical importance and it was found to be useful for relatively clean wastewater samples. After the initial version, two improvements were developed: first, a texture verification process that reduced the number of false positive results; and second, the establishment of the optimal thresholds (morphology and texture) for each helminth egg species. This second implementation, which was found to improve on the results of the former, was developed with the objective of using free software as a platform for the system. This doe...
Source: Experimental Parasitology - Category: Parasitology Authors: Tags: Exp Parasitol Source Type: research