HEp-2 staining pattern recognition at cell and specimen levels

Updates the state of the art in HEp-2 cell and specimen image classification.Analyses and compares 15 methods tested over a common and very large dataset.Highlights the key elements of the best performing methods. The Indirect Immunofluorescence (IIF) protocol applied on Human Epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) cells is the current gold standard for the Antinuclear Antibody (ANA) test. The formulation of the diagnosis requires the visual analysis of a patients specimen under a fluorescence microscope in order to recognize the cells staining pattern which could be related to a connective tissue disease. This analysis is time consuming and error prone, thus in the recent past we have witnessed a growing interest in the pattern recognition scientific community directed at the development of methods for supporting this complex task. The main driver of the interest towards this problem is represented by the series of international benchmarking initiatives organized in the last four years that allowed dozens of research groups to propose innovative methodologies for HEp-2 cells staining pattern classification. In this paper we update the state of the art on HEp-2 cells and specimens classification, by analyzing the performance achieved by the methods participating the contest on Performance Evaluation of IIF Image Analysis Systems, hosted by the 22nd edition of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition ICPR 2014, and to the Executable Thematic Special Issue of Pattern Recognition Letters on Pattern Recognition Techniques for IIF Images Analysis, and by highlighting the trends in the design of the best performing methods.