Quantifying myocardial fibrosis on murine model using ImageJ

Abstract

Quantification of histological images is a task often required in biomedical research. Many of the methods used are time-consuming, difficult to replicate and subjective. This work aimed to describe and validate a more objective, reproducible and easy to perform methodology to measure murine heart fibrosis, using ImageJ software. For this matter, a macro was created and validated for its intra and inter-observational reproducibility. No significant differences were found between the results obtained manually and with the macro (p> 0.05). Regarding the interobserver variability, the macro proved to be a less variable method by presenting higher correlation coefficients between observers when compared with the manual measurement. With these results, we were able to define and describe a methodology that outputs objective and replicable results in a less laborious way.