Development of an image classification pipeline for atherosclerotic plaques assessment using supervised machine learning

BACKGROUND: During atherosclerosis, the narrowing of the arterial lumen is observed through the accumulation of bio compounds and the formation of plaque within artery walls. A non-linear optical imaging modality (NLOM), coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy, can be used to image lipid-rich structures commonly found in atherosclerotic plaques. By matching the lipid’s molecular vibrational frequencies (CH bonds), it is possible to map the accumulation of lipid-rich structures without the need for exogenous labelling and/or processing of the samples. CARS allows for the visualization of the morphological features of plaque. In combination with supervised machine learning, CARS imaged morphological features can be used to characterize the progression of atherosclerotic plaques. RESULTS: Based on a set of label-free CARS images of atherosclerotic plaques (i.e. foam cell clusters) from a Watanabe heritable hyperlipidemic rabbit model, we developed an automated pipeline to classify atherosclerotic lesions based on their major morphological features. Our method uses image preprocessing to first improve the quality of the CARS-imaged plaque, followed by the segmentation of the plaque using Otsu thresholding, marker-controlled watershed, K-means segmentation and a novel independent foam cell thresholding segmentation. To define relevant morphological features, 27 quantitative features were extracted and further refined by a novel coefficient of variation feature refinement method in accordance with filter-type feature selection. Refined morphological features were supplied into three supervised machine learning algorithms; K-nearest neighbour, support vector machine and decision tree classifier. The classification pipeline showcased the ability to exploit relevant plaque morphological features to accurately classify 3 pre-defined stages of atherosclerosis: early fatty streak development (EFS) and advancing atheroma (AA) with a greater than 85% class accuracy CONCLUSIONS: Through the combination of CARS microscopy and computational methods, a powerful classification tool was developed to identify the progression of atherosclerotic plaque in an automated manner. Using a curated dataset, the classification pipeline demonstrated the ability to differentiate between EFS, EF and AA. Thus, presenting the opportunity to classify the onset of atherosclerosis at an earlier stage of development SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12859-022-05059-1.