Understanding What Digital Pathology Actually Looks Like in Practice

Science has had many advancements in a short amount of years. The first compound microscope wasn’t invented until the 1590s. From here, we’ve had scanning probes, ultramicroscopes, and electron microscopes.

If you’re in the digital pathology field or are thinking of entering it, you might wonder more about how it works. Read on for this complete guide about what digital pathology is and how it’s advancing technology in the modern-day!

What Is Digital Pathology?

When it comes to digital pathology and using a cryosectioning machine, it uses the management, acquisition, interpretation, and sharing of pathology information. This can include data and slides in a digital environment.

This new medical practice gives you a high-resolution digital image that you can see on a mobile device or computer screen. Digital slides occur when glass slides are captured with a scanning device.

It allows you to use automated digital pathology scanners to capture an entire glass slide. The magnification is similar to a microscope.

You can use digital pathology software applications to share the slides over networks. They can be applied to assist in the quantification and interpretation of biomarker expressions.

Who Uses Digital Pathology?

Healthcare applications use it for diagnostic consultation, primary diagnosis, and intraoperative diagnosis. It can also be used for resident and medical student training as well. You can find it in clinical research, decision support, and immunohistochemistry.

It’s being used today because it leads to a reduction in laboratory expenses. It can also lead to enhanced productivity, operational efficiency, and improving treatment decisions. Digital pathology can also lead to an improvement in patient care as well.

How It’s Used in the Medical Industry

There are 3 ways that it’s used today. The fastest-growing option uses it on clinical labs moving to an all-digital workflow. Digital pathology is powered by AI in order to help pathologists manage the workflow into worklists.

Diagnosis isn’t delayed when you rely on digital pathology. There aren’t wait times or the physical shipment of tissue samples.

Digital pathology can also be used on quantitative analysis, education, or consultations when it comes to remote matters. This is common for clinical labs.

Research institutions such as CROs, pharmaceutical companies, and academic medical centers use digital pathology. This can include database management, robust study design, and data collection. It helps out with the millions of specimens that they seek to leverage.

Digital Pathology Broken Down

First, the information is taken through the digitization of slides and related data. A scanning device is used to capture the imagery.

Many labs use automated digital pathology scanners. This allows them to have information available regarding the entire glass slide. You can use both fluorescent and bright fields while using the magnification levels.

The information is then placed into a digital management system. This is when it can be interpreted, shared, or analyzed in a digital environment. You can also use analysis tools as part of the software package to speed up the analysis and interpretation.

Looking at the Future

You can find digital pathology around the world and it’s only increasing. Due to the advancement of technology, it’ll only continue to grow. It’ll continue to grow and offer more benefits around the world.

Today, scientists are using digital pathology with machine learning and artificial intelligence. This allows image-based diagnosis. Image-based diagnoses could improve or speed up the accuracy of the diagnosis for many diseases.

Allows More Options

Pathologists are no longer stuck in labs in order to make this happen. You’ll have new analysis tools and informatics to use regarding digital pathology. It’s important to have user experience designers on the team as well.

If your hospital makes the switch to digital pathology, you could wind up saving money. This is due to decreasing errors and distributing the workload. There are hopes that digital pathology will be more accepted especially due to the fact that the pandemic has shown this need.

The Problem With Progression

Unfortunately, there are still many who don’t embrace digital pathology. There are many pathologists who are still against it. In order to progress with it, there need to be more pathologists open to digital pathology.

While there might be a delay in digital imaging and the production of slides, that can be overcome by prioritizing slides. For the best results, you’ll want to pre-scan all slides in order to find out-of-focus areas.

During the pandemic, digital pathology has allowed pathologists to work from the comfort of their own homes. This means that they can perform their job even if they’re not in the lab.

Since it allows you to send the information from person to person, if one person is sick, it can be sent to another pathologist. This saves a trip of having to go into the office.

Some think that digital pathology doesn’t look as clear as a microscope, but that isn’t the case. Take a look at the slides on a high-quality screen and you’ll see that they’re easily viewable.

Understanding Digital Pathology Today

After exploring this guide, you should have a better idea of what digital pathology is and isn’t. Take your time on adopting digital pathology for your lab in order to save time.

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