Method for closing incomplete area of interest markings and for facilitating tissue treatment

A computer-implemented method for completing incomplete area of interest markings, an area of interest marking indicating an area of interest on an image of a tissue section, the method comprising

• obtaining an image of a tissue section together with area of interest markings comprising one or more contours, a contour in the image at least partially surrounding an area of the image, at least one of the one or more contours being a partial contour which does not fully enclose an area,
• detecting in the image endpoints of the one or more contours,
• applying a score to pairs of detected endpoints indicating a likelihood that the pair of endpoints correspond to the same partial contour,
• selecting using the score a pair of endpoints corresponding to the same partial contour, and
• drawing in the image a segment connecting the two endpoints in the selected pair obtaining a contour enclosing an area,
• applying a machine learned model to the image of the tissue section to obtain a tissue image comprising the tissue,
• determining for the contour enclosing an area an intersection between the enclosed area and the tissue in the tissue image, and removing the contour if an area of the intersection is below a threshold.

A system for completing incomplete area of interest markings, an area of interest marking indicating an area of interest on an image of a tissue section, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and one or more storage devices storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations for
• obtaining an image of a tissue section together with area of interest markings comprising one or more contours, a contour in the image at least partially surrounding an area of the image, at least one of the one or more contours being a partial contour which does not fully enclose the area,
• detecting in the image endpoints of the one or more contours,
• applying a score to pairs of detected endpoints indicating a likelihood that the pair of endpoints correspond to the same partial contour,
• selecting using the score a pair of endpoints corresponding to the same partial contour, and
• drawing in the image a segment connecting the two endpoints in the selected pair obtaining a contour enclosing an area,
• applying a machine learned model to the image of the tissue section to obtain a tissue image comprising the tissue,
• determining for the contour enclosing an area an intersection between the enclosed area and the tissue in the tissue image, and removing the contour if an area of the intersection is below a threshold.