Characterization of collagen fibers by means of texture analysis of second harmonic generation images using orientation-dependent gray level co-occurrence matrix method

Collagen is the most prominent protein in the human body, making up 30% of the total protein content. Quantitative studies have shown structural differences between collagen fibers of the normal and diseased tissues, due to the remodeling of the extracellular matrix during the pathological process. The dominant orientation, which is an important characteristic of collagen fibers, has not been taken into consideration for quantitative collagen analysis. Based on the conventional gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) method, the authors proposed the orientation-dependent GLCM (OD-GLCM) method by estimating the dominant orientation of collagen fibers. The authors validated the utility of the OD-GLCM method on second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopic images of tendons from rats with different ages. Compared with conventional GLCM method, the authors' method has not only improved the discrimination between different tissues but also provided additional texture information of the orderliness of collagen fibers and the fiber size. The OD-GLCM method was further applied to the differentiation of the preliminary SHG images of normal and cancerous human pancreatic tissues. The combination of SHG microscopy and the OD-GLCM method might be helpful for the evaluation of diseases marked with abnormal collagen morphology.