The detection and summation of squamous epithelial cells for sputum quality testing

Sputum with good quality is important to detect diseases. The quality of sputum is determined using Bartlett's Criteria by considering the score of squamous epithelial cells (SEC), pus cell (neutrophils) and macroscopy. For squamous epithelial cells, the score is 0 if SEC is less than 10. Whereas if SEC is within 10 to 25, the score is -1 and the score is -2 if the number of SEC is greater than 25. Currently, the detection of SEC in sputum is manually done by technologists. However, the problem with manual detection is time consuming. So, an automated vision system using image processing technique to detect the sputum quality is desirable. Image processing such as image segmentation is used to detect and count the number of SEC, and then the score is determined. Lastly, the percentage of error for this project is calculated.