How To Use Xcyt
This section is still under construction.
- Open an image using the "File -> Open Remote" menu option.
- Isolate 20-30 cell nuclei. There are different ways to
accomplish this.
- Option 1: draw them by hand, using the mouse pointer.
Click and drag an approximate outline using the left
button. Release the button before reaching the beginning
point. Double-click the left button to correct small
errors in your boundary. Right-click to remove an outline
that did not conform closely to the actual boundary of the
necleus.
- Option 2: Choosing the "Edit -> Find Nuclei" option
will take several minutes, depending on the speed of your
computer, but will do a good job of isolating and
outlining the nuclei automatically. Repeated selections
of "Find Nuclei" should be very fast. Again, you should
delete and re-initialize any the do not perform well.
- Option 3: If you outline a nucleus manually before
running "Find Nuclei", the program will search for nuclei
of about the same size as the one you outlined. This will
result in significantly faster performance, but may miss
nuclei of different sizes.
- Option 4: The "Edit -> Speedup" selection runs
significantly faster than "Find Nuclei" and covers all
possible nuclear sizes but is not as reliable in isolating
the nuclei.
- Nuclear feature values are displayed automatically on the
screen. These can be saved if desired.
- To predict whether or not the sample is malignant, choose "File
-> Diagnosis." The resulting graph shows a diagnostic index,
running from benign cases (on the left) to malignant cases (on
the right), and an X to indicate the relative position of the
current case.