Article • Overcoming barriers
Scaling the barriers to precise diagnoses
Whilst digital pathology has the potential to deliver more precise diagnostics, there remain a number of barriers to its widespread implementation.
Pathology
Article • Moving on
I saw the future of pathology – and it’s digital
Healthcare is going digital. No doubt about it, Prof. Hufnagl predicts. Information and communication technologies have gone beyond moving data from one place to the other; they are triggering stellar improvements in healthcare: diagnoses are becoming ever more precise, therapies ever more personalised. The extent to which the individual clinical disciplines have progressed in their technological…
Article • Microarrays
Taking biomarker research to a new level
Harnessing the potential of digital pathology is taking research into new and more efficient biomarkers to a new level. By combining strategic planning with the latest digital pathology technology, high quality tissue microarrays for biomarker research are being produced.
Article • Standards
We expect to see some changes
Strictly speaking, digital pathology has not yet resulted in any groundbreaking changes for clinical diagnostics. The conventional light microscope introduced to pathology around 100 years ago continues to be the most important tool for pathologists.
Article • Strategies
Three-step process for digital pathology
As laboratories in Europe shift to systems for digital pathology, they must ensure the technology not only works, but works for them, says Dr Liron Pantanowitz, director of pathology informatics at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
Article • Mini Microscopes
Mobile technology could enhance digital pathology
Mobile technology could prove an important catalyst in helping take digital pathology onto a new level in delivering clinical diagnostics.
Article • Change Management
The digital age in diagnostics dawns
Pathologists in Utrecht step away from the microscope as the first fully digital workflow goes live for primary diagnostics. ‘The whole world wants to stop by and see the show,’ said Paul van Diest MD, who leads the Department of Pathology at the Utrecht University Medical Centre.
Article • Pros & cons
Goodbye to the microscope? Not yet!
Carol - I. Geppert MD, from the Institute for Pathology at Erlangen University Hospital, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, debates the impact of digitisation on pathology.
Sponsored • Automated DIA
Use the digital image analysis in Breast Cancer
In a study of 436 breast cancer cases with 28 years of survival data histo-pathologists from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden shows that protein tissue-based biomarker data are at least as good as gene expression assays.
Article • Digitisation
Pathology departs from a dark back room
A UK-based neuropathologist has highlighted how the digitisation of pathology will play a pivotal role in taking patient care on to a new and more efficient level. Speaking in a recent Webinar under the heading The Adoption and Benefits of Digital Pathology for Primary Diagnosis, Dr Daniel du Plessis also noted how the digital era would raise the profile of pathology and ‘bring it out of the…
Article • DICOM & IHE
ECDP: Spanish pathologist highlights image storage issues
Compressing and storing digital images in pathology remains technically challenging but there are many options that can both help reduce costs and improve efficiency, a Spanish expert will explain in a dedicated talk during ECDP in Berlin.
Interview • Clear
In sight: greater clarity for pathologists
The equivalent of HD or Ultra-HD for home television and video is now entering the world of medicine. Although 4K technology with its high-resolution display quality is already used in radiology, there are areas that do not yet benefit from this advanced technology.
Interview • Tumour triggers
Can cancer be contagious?
No self-respecting TV crime series is without a pathologist – but the fictitious pathologist who incessantly solves crimes has little to do with reality.
Article • Molecular profile
Revealing cancer at a minuscule level
Since the introduction of targeted therapies in oncology the task of the pathologist has expanded beyond histological diagnostics: today, the pathologist analyses tumour tissue samples to establish a molecular profile with tumour cell characteristics – which in turn become the targets of medication.
News • Pathologists and Radiologists
3D imaging of cancer cells could lead to improved ability
Imaging research is one step closer to giving clinicians a way to do high-resolution scans of malignant cells in order to diagnose cancer and help identify useful therapies. If this technology were to prove successful in clinical studies, it might change how anatomic pathologists and radiologists diagnose and treat cancer.
News • Looking inside
A new method of viewing TB bacteria
Although tuberculosis (TB) is commonly thought of as being a disease that mainly affects nineteenth century poets and Victor Hugo characters, it is still the second-most common cause of mortality from an infectious disease in the world, killing nearly three people every minute.
News • MERS
First reported autopsy of patient with MERS provides critical insights
Since 2012, at least 1,500 individuals have developed Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), resulting in more than 500 fatalities. Only now are results being reported of the first autopsy of a MERS patient, which was performed in 2014. Not only do these findings, published in The American Journal of Pathology, provide unprecedented, clinically-relevant insights about how MERS progresses, they…
Article • Management
UK hospitals conduct few post mortems
Post mortems are now rarely carried out within UK hospitals – according to a study that examined all acute NHS Trusts within England, NHS Boards in Scotland and Wales and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland, and found that the process has disappeared completely in around a quarter (23%) of NHS trusts. In 2013, the average autopsy rate (percentage of adult in-patient deaths that undergo…
Article • Service
Telepathology - apps and phones
Collaborating with colleagues locally and globally using telepathology can be successful for facilities both financially and clinically, says Dr. Liron Pantanowitz, director of pathology informatics at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Pantanowitz, who also serves as a consultant to Onyx, a company that provides digital pathology technology and is joint venture between GE Healthcare…
Article • Scanner
The world’s first digital clinical path lab
The field is so new that the annual Digital Pathology Congress (3-4 December in London) was held for only the second time. Yet, Philips Healthcare could announce a world-first – in partnership with the Netherlands-based LabPON, the company has created the first clinical pathology laboratory to be completely converted to digital diagnosis.
Article • Networking
Improvements in efficiency and quality through digitalisation
Increasing requirements for specialisation and diagnostic quality in pathology on the one hand and the importance of pathology findings for treatment planning on the other hand call for new solutions in pathomorphological diagnostics. One important starting point is the fast-paced opportunity for digitalisation along with communication systems which facilitate the storage and transfer of large…
News • Cancer care
Swedish healthcare region invests in digital pathology from Sectra
The Swedish healthcare Region Östergötland is making a full commitment to digital pathology by investing in a solution from Sectra for storage, review and sharing of digital pathology images. The aim of the region’s investment is more rapid care for cancer patients, in which pathology has a key role in diagnosis and treatment.
News • Course of infections
Cell marker enables prognosis
When a pathogen invades the body, specific cells in the human immune system are ready to take immediate action in order to destroy it. The molecular characteristics of these killer cells were unknown until recently. Now, for the first time, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has managed to create a molecular profile of the protective cells. By studying these immune cells from…
Article • Danish experience
A national digital pathology system
A national digital pathology system across Denmark has helped to significantly improve efficiency and raise levels of patient safety. It has used advanced computer software systems and created a countrywide database to optimise the assessment of patients’ specimens. Report: Mark Nicholls
Article • Pathology
Unlocking imaging potential
Automated image analysis shows significant potential within histopathology to help identify novel and subtle prognostic features. UK expert Dr Peter Caie also believes such image analysis can turn aspects of histopathology from a traditionally semi-quantitative field into a fully quantifiable and standardised science. However, he also points out that challenges remain before the full potential is…
