SEPO-IR: Software-based evaluation process for calculating infection rate

Pathology is crucial for understanding and treating diseases, and is heavily based on objective and quantitative criteria. While advances in immunohistochemistry (IHC) and digital pathology (DP) have significantly improved methods for quantitative disease detection, existing research has primarily focused on the detection of abnormal biomarkers. As a result, the quantitative assessment of infection extent has frequently been overlooked owing to technical difficulties, particularly in feature extraction. To address these issues, we propose an automated image-based system for calculating tissue infection rates. This system accurately determines the proportion of infected areas, reducing human bias and increasing efficiency, resulting in more reliable diagnostics and treatment planning. Validation of the proposed method shows a very high correlation with pathologists’ assessments. Furthermore, this software is an easy-to-use application that can significantly improve DP research. • Propose quantitative biomarker assessment through pixel-based analysis. • Reduce human bias and improve efficiency in labor-intensive tasks using quantitative evaluation. • Provide the analysis pipeline as an application to ensure ease of use.