Automated Measurement of Haemozoin (Malarial Pigment) Area in Liver Histology Using Image J 1.6

Common histopathological changes in the
liver due to Plasmodium infection is the presence of
haemozoin (malarial pigment) in liver histology section.
Identification of haemozoin generally done manually under
microscope. Measurement of haemozoin area rarely done
because it is quite difficult to separate the haemozoin area
from other element in liver histology. Identification and
measurement haemozoin area can be done by image
analysis using ImageJ. ImageJ is a public domain Java image
processing program that enables a plugin development.
Plugins are small Java modules for extending the
functionality of ImageJ by using a simple standardized
interface. Aim of this research is developed ImageJ plugin
to measure the haemozoin area in liver histology. Totally
60 random liver histology images were analyzed using our
plugin. Algorithm of plugin contain several sequential
stages, such as splitting channels, thresholding the image
for detection haemozoin area in blue channel and measure
haemozoin area. Average haemozoin area from 60 images
defined with our plugin was 3884.5 µm2
. Our plugin
succeeded in detecting and measuring the haemozoin area
in liver images at approximately 3.91 seconds.