Manual slide scanning is one of the most tedious and time-consuming elements of cytogenetic analysis. The development and application of a new automated digital scanning technology, termed ScanScope, is proposed for efficiently finding all metaphase spreads in a cytogenetic microscope slide preparation. The ScanScope approach is based on rapidly scanning and digitizing an entire microscope slide - up to 30 times faster than conventional approaches - followed by the creation of a large contiguous digital image that is the basis for finding metaphase spreads. Preliminary results demonstrate the potential of this novel method to yield images that are suitable for automatically finding metaphase spreads . We propose to further study and optimize the rapid scanning of cytogenetic microscope samples and the development of image processing algorithms, so as to ultimately provide a cost-effective method for finding metaphase spreads that is rapid and fully automatic, yet reliable enough to be suitable for routine clinical use. The development of software algorithms is proposed to demonstrate the feasibility of this improved method for automatically and reliably finding metaphase spreads in a variety of cytogenetic preparations. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: The proposed automatic metaphase spread finder will eliminate manual slide scanning, one of the most tedious and time-consuming elements of cytogenetic analysis. The novel features of the ScanScope are expected to enable the cost-effective development of a rapid, fully automatic and reliable instrument that is suitable for routine clinical use at some 1000 potential sites. Rapid adoption by clinical laboratory is expected because productivity increases resulting from use of a ScanScope metaphase spread finder translate into payback periods less than 12 months.
