Automated separation of merged Langerhans islets

This paper deals with separation of merged Langerhans islets in segmentations in order to evaluate correct histogram of islet diameters. A distribution of islet diameters is useful for determining the feasibility of islet transplantation in diabetes. First, the merged islets at training segmentations are manually separated by medical experts. Based on the single islets, the merged islets are identified and the SVM classifier is trained on both classes (merged/single islets). The testing segmentations were over-segmented using watershed transform and the most probable back merging of islets were found using trained SVM classifier. Finally, the optimized segmentation is compared with ground truth segmentation (correctly separated islets).