A Reflective Analysis of Image Processing Operations on Kato-Katz Images for the Pathological Diagnosis of Neglected Tropical Diseases

Abstract

This paper gives an insight into the interdisciplinary work that has been carried out to diagnose some of the neglected tropical diseases, in particular micro-parasitic diseases, using image processing operations. The infections from micro-parasites are collectively called Helminthiasis. The Kato-Katz method is a slide scanning technique commonly used for the qualitative and semi-quantitative diagnosis of helminthiasis. This paper explains the image analysis and processing of Kato-katz images to extract meaningful information and convert the qualitative features of the images to quantitative data and thereby effectively diagnose the disease. This is the preliminary stage of a pioneering work done in the field of neglected tropical disease diagnosis and would be beneficial for thousands of people including children in the endemic regions.