System and method for estimating a quantity of interest based on an image of a histological section

A system for indicating a quantity of interest related to the density of organic tissue, comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory storing program instructions which, when executed by the processor, implements steps of:
• obtaining a digital microscopic representation of a histological section after removal of a sample of the organic tissue,
• converting the digital representation to a binary image, to discriminate pixels that represent tissue of interest in the image,
• iteratively applying a box filter to values of the pixels of interest to obtain a tissue density value for each pixel of interest, and
• calculating a number of pixels per section of values among a predetermined number of classes to express a frequency of high parenchymal densities, wherein an expression of the frequency of high parenchymal densities is a computed quantity of interest;
• and
• an output device that presents a tangible representation of at least the quantity of interest.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with program instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

• obtain a digital microscopic representation of a histological section after removal of a sample of organic tissue;
• convert the digital representation to a binary image, to discriminate pixels that represent tissue of interest in the image;
• iteratively apply a box filter to values of the pixels of interest to obtain a tissue density value for each pixel of interest;
• calculate a number of pixels per section of values among a predetermined number of classes to express a frequency of high parenchymal densities, wherein an expression of the frequency of high parenchymal densities is a computed quantity of interest;
• and
• present a tangible representation of at least the quantity of interest.