In some aspects, the described systems and methods provide for a method for training a statistical model to predict tissue characteristics for a pathology image. The method includes accessing annotated pathology images. Each of the images includes an annotation describing a tissue characteristic category for a portion of the image. A set of training patches and a corresponding set of annotations are defined using an annotated pathology image. Each of the training patches in the set includes values obtained from a respective subset of pixels in the annotated pathology image and is associated with a corresponding patch annotation determined based on an annotation associated with the respective subset of pixels. The statistical model is trained based on the set of training patches and the corresponding set of patch annotations. The trained statistical model is stored on at least one storage device.
