Fig 1.
Digital image showing female genital schistosomiasis associated pathognomonic lesions of the cervix (picture A) and the same lesions being digitally marked by QubiFier to determine the cervical lesion proportion (picture B).
The left picture (A) shows an area, which contains homogenous yellow sandy patches appearing as yellow colored area (indicated by white dashed line). The differently colored arrows indicate the other pathognomonic lesion types: a grainy sandy patch (white arrow), clustered grainy sandy patches or rice-grain shaped sandy patches (green arrow) and a rubbery papule colored in beige with an uneven surface (yellow arrow). Abnormal blood vessel (rounded, uneven-calibered, corkscrew or convoluted) are indicated by the blue arrow. The right picture (B) shows squares of the grid marked digitally containing any types of pathognomonic lesions. The red arrow shows the proportion of the cervix covered by any type of pathognomonic lesions.
Fig 2.
Flowchart displaying the different testing procedures in the FGS digital gridded imaging technique study in which 70 images of the cervical portio were reviewed for cervical lesion proportions (CLP) and rubbery papule counts (RPC), respectively.
Fig 3.
Distribution of cervical lesion proportions (%) for the 60 digital images as rated by the three observers and ranked in accordance with the respective individual mean values.
Fig 4.
Three cases representing different levels of female genital schistosomiasis (FGS) associated pathology in accordance with the cervical lesion proportion (CLP) categories: low (1 to 15%), intermediary (16 to 30%), and high (>30%).
Fig 5.
A box-and-whisker-plot of cervical lesion proportions (%) for each observer (A, B, and C) rating the 60 digital images. The bold horizontal line indicates the median, the upper and the lower line of the box the interquartile range.
Fig 6.
A box-and-whisker plot of median rubbery papule counts (n) and interquartile range for each observer (A, B, and C) rating the 60 digital images.
Fig 7.
Distribution of rubbery papule count (n) for the 60 digital images as rated by the three observers and ranked in accordance with the respective individual mean values.