Deep Learning based Automatic Detection of Dicentric Chromosome

Abstract: Automatic detection of dicentric chromosomes is an essential step to estimate radiation exposure and development of end to end emergency bio dosimetry systems. During accidents, a large amount of data is required to be processed for extensive testing to formulate a medical treatment plan for the masses, which requires this process to be automated. Current approaches require human adjustments according to the data and therefore need a human expert to calibrate the system. This paper proposes a completely data driven framework which requires minimum intervention of field experts and can be deployed in emergency cases with relative ease. Our approach involves YOLOv4 to detect the chromosomes and remove the debris in each image, followed by a classifier that differentiates between an analysable chromosome and a non-analysable one. Images are extracted from YOLOv4 based on the protocols described by WHO-BIODOSNET. The analysable chromosome is classified as Monocentric or Dicentric and an image is accepted for consideration of dose estimation based on the analysable chromosome count. We report an accuracy in dicentric identification of 94.33% on a 1:1 split of Dicentric and Monocentric Chromosomes.