METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR CHARACTERIZATION OF TISSUE SAMPLES

The invention provides methods for determining the probability that a given region of a tissue sample contains tissue of a given category, such as CIN 1 (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, grade 1), CIN 2/3 (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grades 2 and/or 3), normal squamous, normal columnar, and metaplasia, for example. The invention provides increased diagnostic accuracy by combining a plurality of statistical classification techniques. Furthermore, in one embodiment, the invention comprises combining one or more statistical techniques with one or more non-statistical classification techniques.