Computer-Assisted Image Analysis of Amyloid Deposits in Abdominal Fat Pad Aspiration Biopsies

Amyloidosis is a heterogeneous group of diseases with a common outcome: deposition of insoluble protein in the visceral organs and tissues. Primary amyloidosis is a consequence of different plasma cell disorders. and it is the most common form of amyloidosis ill the United States with all estimated 2,000 new cases annually. Other forms of amyloidosis include chronic inflammatory processes familial type of amyloidosis, and localized forms like Alzheimer's disease. The diagnosis of amyloidosis is based on the clinical picture and demonstration of amyloid deposit in tissues with Congo-red analysis of fat pad biopsies for amyloidosis using a commercially available software Adobe Photoshop CS3 (c) Extended Edition. The principle is based oil calculation of the mean gray value of each blue and green channel and comparison of their ratios. As a negative control, we have used samples front heart. scar tissue, and skirl with their representative control. Fibrous tissue often;ivies a white:blue to blue:green birefringence, which often is confused with the apple: greets birefringence of the amyloid stain: however, we were successful ill discriminating these colors using the methodology described ill this article. We also analyzed 22 patients with at least 2 years follow-up in our institution the specificity and the sensitivity of the computer-assisted image analysis were calculated to be 75% and 100%, respectively. These results are ill agreement with the published papers (references here): however, caution should be exercised before drawing firm conclusions because of the small sample size presented here. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2009;37:30-35. (C) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.