Digital Pathology Applications
A digital slide is the springboard for a wide variety of digital pathology applications including whole slide image analysis, virtual second opinions, reporting, remote sign-out, remote consultation, quality control, tumor boards, pathology education, telepathology, and remote frozen section review.
Whole slide images that can be accessed anywhere and shared in seconds have many advantages over standard microscopy. In the next five years, a significant portion of pathology diagnoses will be performed with whole slide images on a computer screen rather than glass slides on a microscope.
Digital pathology offers pathologists the ability to perform more accurate, reproducible and quantitative analyses, ensuring the right treatment for the right patient. A digital pathology infrastructure enables rapid consultations and multiple pathologist review of important cases. Cases, including frozen sections, can be reviewed from remote locations, allowing pathology practices to maximize efficiencies and minimize costs of pathologist staffing. Furthermore, digital images can be shared with non-pathology clinical colleagues, such as oncologists, to highlight important findings.
A compelling reason to adopt digital pathology now is to become comfortable with the quickly advancing technology in preparation for widespread adoption in clinical practice in the coming years. Imaging, computing, and storage technology have all advanced to the point where digital pathology is not just possible for limited applications in research and education, but practical for daily clinical practice. The technology is affordable and easy to use, making it accessible to every lab to implement in order to support better decision making, workflow and, ultimately, patient care. Digitization of slides makes images available to the pathologist for a variety of applications that are simply not possible with glass slides.
