- In the last 15 to 20 years computing and data power have enabled us to digitize, a complete digital slide.
- Digital pathology is not only the creation of a digital slide. It also requires an integration into the existing service: capacity of integrating into different information systems. This includes:
- the electronic medical records (EMR)
- the laboratory information system
- the pathology information system, the radiology system and so on.
Why use digital pathology ?
- It allows to send the images which is useful for many reasons (see articles on Tele-pathology)
- Artificial intelligence and deep learning techniques are being applied to digital pathology (histopathology); dermatology represents 17% of it terms of volume:
- This helps us for instance to segment (delineate) or detect tumoral areas while achievening a better prediction than manual procedures.
- It’s easy to use: either by the pathologist, or dermatologist.
- interpretation by the pathologist can be made assited by AI assisted screening tool which runs in parallel.
- Human intervention remains essential to integrate in the workflow of digital pathology into the whole clinical setting.
- quantification is initally done with usage automatic image analysis, algorithms and also to detect tumoral area detection deep learning algorithms.
- Quality controls and traceability of steps need to be checked throughout the process.
Marcial Garcia-Rojo, MD. Teledermatopathology. 8th World Congress of Teledermatology, Skin Imaging and AI in Skin diseases – November 2020
