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…
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…
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.
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…
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.
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…
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…
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
Computer-aided diagnosis could soon play a greater role in digital pathology. Dr Jeroen van der Laak, an Assistant Professor in Digital Pathology at Radboud University, believes a breakthrough that would increase the speed and accuracy of diagnoses and prognoses is closer than many observers think Report: Mark Nicholls
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Pathology is the gold standard of prostate diagnostics. Whilst the radiologist makes interpretations based on shadows and grey scale values visible on an image, the pathologist has the ‘fait accompli’ under the microscope. Professor Glen Kristiansen, Director at the Institute for Pathology at the University Hospital Bonn, explains why image-guided biopsies also make sense from the…
What you see is what you get - unfortunately, this doesn’t always apply in cancer imaging. Why is it that something which looks conspicuous on an image later turns out not to be a tumour? Why, on the other hand, are things overlooked that later turn out to be cancer? Pathological findings are extremely important to help improve diagnostic precision in radiology. Both disciplines therefore…
University Hospital Utrecht (UMCU) in the Netherlands has invested in a solution from Sectra for storing, viewing and sharing digital pathology images. The solution enables pathologists to review cases for primary diagnostics digitally. This new opportunity significantly increases workflow efficiency and offers enhanced collaboration between pathologists and radiologists at the hospital enabling…
Digitizing pathology is not just a transformation of technology, the major change and benefits lies in the change to a more efficient workflow – enabled by the new technology.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common, and widespread antibiotic resistance has led to urgent calls for new ways to combat them. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences report that an experimental drug that stabilizes a protein called HIF-1alpha protects human bladder cells and mice against a major UTI…
The ESCMID Study Group for Forensic and Postmortem Microbiology will create a new network of microbiologists, virologists, anthropologists and archaeologists working in the field of forensic medicine. Professor Amparo Fernandez-Rodriguez, from the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences, Madrid, is the head of ESGFOR and stresses the importance of this group in facilitating…
The UK pathology sector faces numerous challenges as it strives to create a future medical laboratory workforce. As in many divisions of the National Health Service (NHS), this area has an ageing population yet must evolve against a backdrop of fast-developing technologies, emerging science, financial constraints and the challenge of working in tandem with the private sector. Report: Mark…
Each year, approximately 1.6 million women in the USA have breast biopsies to diagnose or rule out cancer. Pathological diagnosis is considered the gold standard – how accurate are these diagnoses? Report: Cynthia E. Keen
In 1995 Claudia and Robert Karl risked self-employment in a sector already dominated by experts. Those manufacturers, however, sold standardised products. The Karls, with backing from a stainless steel producer, decided to produce tailor-made solutions to fit customers’ needs. To that end they attended international medical equipment exhibitions from Dubai through to Malaysia. Today, Claudia…
Looking back, the founding fathers of laboratory medicine were doctors who carried out the historic medical practice of uroscopy in the Middle Ages, explains Professor Klaus Kohse MD, Director of the Institute for Laboratory Medicine in Oldenburg Clinical Centre at Oldenburg University Medical Faculty. Report: Walter Depner
Molecular profiling is transforming brain cancer management and radiologists must get to grips with the upcoming paradigm that will affect the way they report findings. Renowned neuroradiologist Professor Anne G. Osborn from the University of Utah, School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, unveiled the latest advances in brain pathology during the Nikola Tesla Honorary Lecture last week at ECR…
Gideon Ho, CEO and co-founder of Singapore-based HistoIndex is confident: ‘After a biopsy a patient waits in a hospital bed, but now, instead of waiting a couple days until doctors know how to treat this patient, we can deliver results while the patient is still in the hospital.’ Report: John Brosky
A limited survey of patients who died soon after being discharged from hospital found that almost a quarter had an undiagnosed co-morbidity with a potentially avoidable cause of death. Report: Frank Swain
‘Why should something that works for the automotive industry not also facilitate leaner processes in pathology?’ Walter Depner decided to look at The Institute of Pathology in Bern, Switzerland, where the concept was tested for three years.
For several decades pathologists worldwide have been under increasing pressure to handle a steady increase in laboratory tests with a steady decrease in finance and staff.
