Abstract: An automated method for detecting circulating tumor cells in a microscopic image of a blood sample includes receiving, by a computer, a plurality of low-resolution images, each low resolution image providing a representation of the blood sample with one of a plurality of stains applied. The computer determines a threshold value for each of the plurality of stains based on the low resolution images and identifies a list of potential cells based on the threshold values. A gating process is performed on the list of potential circulating tumor cells to identify one or more likely or highly likely circulating tumor cells. The computer presents the subset of the low-resolution images in a verification interface comprising one or more components allowing a user to confirm that a respective low-resolution image included in the subset of the low-resolution images includes one or more circulating tumor cells.