The Digital Pathology Revolution: Breaking the Glass Ceiling
Article preview reprinted from Start-Up - May, 2009
Among diagnostic specialties, anatomic pathology is the last holdout against the digital revolution. Pathologists still detect disease by looking at tissue samples on a glass slide through a microscope, just as they have done for a hundred years. But in the last couple of years, start-up companies have begun to break the bondage of pathologists to slides. Their solution: platforms for digitizing slides so they can be accessed through computer networks by clinicians anywhere in the world. Two start-ups, Aperio and BioImagene, have led the way and now all the big imaging manufacturers, the microscope companies and biomarker developers want in. Read more...
The Digital Pathology Revolution: Breaking the Glass Ceiling
Article preview reprinted from Start-Up - May, 2009
Among diagnostic specialties, anatomic pathology--the sub-specialty that detects disease by identifying morphologic features in tissue--is the last holdout against the digital revolution. Pathologists still hold to the time-worn tradition of looking at a glass slide under a microscope. But in the last couple of years, start-up companies have begun to break the bondage of pathologists to slides. Their solution: platforms for digitizing slides so they can be accessed through computer networks to clinicians anywhere in a hospital system--or in the world, for that matter. When slides are converted to a digital format, pathologists don't have to wait for FedEx shipments of glass slides, collate them in trays, read them one at a time, or ship them somewhere else for a second opinion. Digitization offers obvious workflow efficiencies, and it also makes possible faster and more accurate diagnoses because slides can be displayed on a screen alongside others that can be easily retrieved from digital archives to provide a new perspective, expert second opinions can be quickly and easily sought, and computer algorithms can be applied to the interpretation of images.
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Companies mentioned in this article:
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
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