An Automated Image Analysis Method to Quantify Veterinary Bone Marrow Cellularity on H&E Sections

Bone marrow toxicity is a common finding when assessing safety of drug candidate molecules. Standard hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) marrow tissue sections are typically manually evaluated to provide a semiquantitative assessment of overall cellularity. Here, we developed an automated image analysis method that allows quantitative assessment of changes in bone marrow cell population in sternal bone. In order to test whether the method was repeatable and sensitive, we compared the automated method with manual subjective histopathology scoring of total cellularity in rat sternal bone marrow samples across 17 independently run studies. The automated method was consistent with manual scoring methodology for detecting altered bone marrow cellularity and, in multiple cases, identified changes at lower doses. The image analysis method allows rapid and more quantitative assessment of bone marrow toxicity compared to manual examination of H&E slides, making it an excellent tool to aid detection of bone marrow cell depletion in preclinical toxicologic studies.