Improvement of contrast enhancement technique for cervical cell of Pap smear images by reducing the effect of unwanted background information

Pap test is probably the most common screening method for cervical cancer. In general, the test is performed by examining the cells using a microscope. While Pap test undoubtedly facilitates diagnosis, it suffers from a number of weaknesses such as blurriness as well as the effects of unwanted noises, which may lead to false diagnosis. In order to address some of these problems, this study discusses a novel image processing approach involving segmentation and contrast enhancement techniques. Firstly, images of cervical cells on the Pap smears are selected using the segmentation technique. Then, four algorithms of contrast enhancement technique are applied on the selected cell to increase their contrast. The results show that the combination of the proposed technique has successfully increased the contrast of cervical cell of Pap smear images.