Contrast enhancement on pap smear cell images: A comparison.

Cervical cancer is a common disease that can be carried by women. It is the 3rd leading cause of female cancer in Malaysia and the 4th most common type of cancer for women globally. Referring to the HPV Information Centre in 2018, it is estimated that 1682 women are diagnosed and 944 die from having cervical cells. In 2018, 569, 847 of the 18,078,957 cases were categorised as cervical cancer, which is 3.2%. With the advancement in science and technology, cervical cancer can be detected at an early stage by conducting a Pap smear test. This test will filter abnormal cervical cells and detect precancerous changes in cervical cells based on the colour and shape properties of their nuclei and cytoplasm. The problem is that performing the procedure manually can be time-consuming and cause inconsistencies and errors even further because the cervical cell itself does not show an obvious difference in texture and colour from normal cells. This paper will focus on colour contrast enhancement of the cervical cell using a few methods such as Contrast Stretching (CS), CLAHE, Histogram Equalization (HE), Image Adjustment, and Multi Scale Retinex (MSR). From this research, the cervical cell colour contrast can be enhanced to a better level and the detection of cervical cells can happen faster and more accurately. Hence, the errors in detecting can be reduced again so they can be treated soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]