Methods and Systems for Assessing Histological Stains

A system for assessing a histologically stained specimen, the system comprising:

• a) a microscope;
• b) a digital color camera attached to the microscope and configured to obtain a digital color image of the specimen;
• c) a library comprising a plurality of reference color signatures specific to biological features of histologically stained reference specimens;
• d) image processing circuitry configured to:
• i) define on the digital color image a region of interest (ROI) based on a biological feature of the specimen;
• ii) separate the digital color image into individual color channels;
• and
• iii) determine a color signature for the ROI, wherein the color signature comprises quantification of one or more color parameters over the ROI for one or more of the individual color channels;
• and
• iv) compare the determined color signature to one or more reference color signatures of the plurality of reference color signatures of the library to assess the histologically stained specimen.

A system for assessing the quality of a histologically stained specimen, the system comprising:

• a) a microscope;
• b) a digital color camera attached to the microscope and configured to obtain a digital color image of the specimen;
• c) a library comprising a plurality of reference quality color signatures specific to biological features of histologically stained reference specimens;
• d) image processing circuitry configured to:
• i) define on the digital color image a region of interest (ROI) based on a biological feature of the specimen;
• ii) determine a color signature for the ROI, wherein the color signature comprises quantification of one or more color parameters over the ROI;
• and
• iii) compare the determined color signature to one or more reference quality color signatures of the plurality of reference quality color signatures of the library to assess the quality of the histologically stained specimen.