WBC Segmentation using Watershed and Snakes Algorithms for Diagnosis of Malaria

Malaria is a deadly disease caused by parasitic protozoans belonging to Plasmodium type, which is transmitted by an infected female Anopheles Mosquito. Due to sinuous nature of blood cells, it becomes arduous to detect malaria for Haematologists because of minuscule difference in size and geometry of white blood cells and red blood cells. It takes longer to diagnose and the method is susceptible to errors, so to solve these intricate diagnosis, concept of segmentation through active contours and watershed algorithm is proposed in this paper. This paper presents a new concept of detecting malaria on basis of active contours and segmentation of white blood cells from red blood cells. Firstly, on the basis of visage we differentiate WBCs and RBCs using active contours and watershed algorithm. Now, to distinguish between large sized white blood cells and red blood cells, snakes algorithm is used to determine the boundary of cells. This makes the proposed algorithm better in accuracy and time consumption as compared to classification performed by Haematologists.