Five years ago at the United States and Canadian Association of Pathology (USCAP) annual meeting, I was working for one of two slide scanner manufacturers exhibiting in a small booth trying to gain exposure and sell systems. A few years later, there were four or five companies, and this year there were SIXTEEN companies exhibiting digital pathology hardware and/or software solutions.  For the small group of people who have been in this industry for a long time, it’s amazing to see how far the field has evolved.  Here are a few of my digital pathology highlights from USCAP ’10.

A Step Forward

WG-26 met on March 20th to finalize Supplement 145, Whole Slide Imaging for Pathology, for submission to WG-6 who coordinates all changes to DICOM.  On March 25th, WG-6 approved the supplement, and it will go out to letter ballot within the next two weeks for a 49 day voting period.  Assuming a successful outcome, DICOM for whole slide images will be finalize this summer.  Many thanks to WG-26 for all of their hard work over the past five years as this standard will improve data management, interoperability, and workflow within pathology.

The Bandwagon

Several new companies were at USCAP this year offering digital pathology solutions including Leica, Philips, Motic, CRi and MikroScan Technologies.  Laboratory Information Systems (LIS) and middleware companies were highlighting integration with digital pathology companies increasing interoperability for pathology departments. In addition, numerous reference and contract laboratories were demonstrating their use of digital pathology to stay competitive and allow earlier and flexible access to images and their data.  Lastly, current market leaders Aperio, Bioimagene, Olympus, and 3DHistech were demonstrating impressive portfolios of hardware, software, and workflow solutions in their large, expanded booths.

Diagnostic Displays

If you visited the exhibit hall and met with any digital pathology companies, likely you were looking at whole slide images on a Barco diagnostic display.  I recently posted about diagnostic displays, and how they could play a key role in the future of digital pathology, and it was nice to see the industry support and response to diagnostic displays.

Whether it was during sessions, reviewing posters, walking the exhibit hall, or in conversations with colleagues; digital pathology was definitely a hot topic.  With all this excitement and advancement I cannot wait to see where we are next year, and to see who else will jump on the bandwagon!

Excitement is building within the digital pathology community as we prepare to kick off the 99th annual meeting of the United States and Canadian Association of Pathology (USCAP)  this weekend in Washington DC.  Although I have attended this meeting several times, this year I have a whole new perspective.  Instead of being an exhibitor, I am a registered attendee!! This may seem like a trivial change, yet, think of it this way.  I’m not confined to a 10×20 rectangle, I do not have to eat lunch in shifts with a buddy, I’m invited to cocktail parties, and of course, no set-up or breakdown!

As a registered attendee, I am looking forward to:

• The WG-26 DICOM meeting
• Learning about the new Digital Pathology manufacturers Leica Microsystems & Philips Healthcare
• Visiting with current Digital Pathology manufacturers
• Networking with colleagues and friends
• Meeting new people and fostering great relationships
• Checking out all the Barco Diagnostic Displays being used
• Attending talks and poster sessions about advancements in pathology and Digital Pathology

With lots of news coming out in anticipation of the meeting and to keep the conversations going while at the meeting, please join me in tweeting about USCAP with #USCAP10 and Digital Pathology with #digpath.  Let’s gain impressions and share information through twitter.  Also, I welcome the opportunity to meet new people.  Please send me an email if you would like to catch up.

Walking the floor of ToxExpo this week, I came across a Barco medical display monitor at the SlidePath booth.   The monitor was the Coronis Fusion model, a 6 MegaPixel wide-screen diagnostic color display.   This monitor has some impressive features including:

Courtesy of www.barco.com

• Ambient Light Compensation (ALC): A technology which continuously measures the amount of ambient light in the room where a display is being used. If the ambient light level rises or falls, the light output (i.e. luminance) of the display in question will be adjusted accordingly.
• Diagnostic Luminance (DL): A backlight technology capable of generating a DICOM-calibrated brightness of 800 cd/m². As a result, color, grayscale and fused modalities can all be read with diagnostic quality on the same display system.
• i-Guard: A tiny embedded photometer positioned at the front of the LCD screen. It has become the industry standard technology for monitoring the image quality and DICOM-consistency of diagnostic displays.
• Uniform Luminance Technology (ULT): This technology reduces luminance non-uniformities and color non-uniformities which typically exist between the center and the corners of an LCD screen. ULT reduces these non-uniformities and makes sure that the display is compliant with DICOM GSDF across the entire screen area.
• IPS-Pro: An advanced LCD technology that substantially improves viewing angle, brightness, contrast, black levels and switching speed.

In addition, Barco medical imaging displays come with MediCal QAWeb. A software package that provides surveillance of all the Barco monitors. QA Web can:

• Notify administrators of quality issues including changes to DICOM compliance
• Provide asset management
• Remotely preform intervention free calibration
• Generate a performance report

It seems logical that diagnostic displays will have a place in digital pathology, however the size, specifications and requirements will likely change.  For example, diagnostic displays for mammography must have 510(k) approval and mandate a display standard of at least 5 MegaPixels. Will digital pathology diagnostic displays require FDA approval?  The topic of monitors was briefly discussed at the FDA advisory panel meeting in October.  Also, the Diagnostic Intelligence and Health Information Technology (DIHIT), a department of CAP STS, issued information last fall on a prototype of a pathology diagnostic workstation, which was supported by many digital pathology solution providers.  In addition, many vendors are starting to market and sell similar solutions to the pathology diagnostic workstation, like Bioimagene’s Crescendo which includes a Barco monitor. Aperio and Olympus are compatible with Barco monitors and will be displaying their digital pathology solutions on them at USCAP in a few weeks.  Lastly, we can only hope that costs on diagnostics displays will start to decrease.  Currently, the 6 MP Coronis Fusion lists for $17,500 USD.

Other companies who manufacturer color diagnostic displays include EIZO/RadiForce and NDS.