As the digital pathology community is embarking on the journey of DICOM implementations questions we haven’t asked ourselves arise.
The American Cancer Society’s latest statistical report, released on Wednesday, says the country’s cancer mortality rate fell by 33% from 1991 through 2021. That decrease equates to an estimated 4.1 million fewer cancer deaths, which researchers attribute to improvements in disease management and detection, along with reductions in smoking.
Non-cancerous cells called stromal cells, which are found in and around prostate tumors, may be useful in assessing these tumors’ potential to spread, and may even be targets for future prostate cancer treatments, according to a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.
From the Lumea Podcast – Ask A Pathologist:In our fifth Ask a Pathologist Podcast episode we had the privilege to interview Dr. Hillel Kahane about his favorite game-changing tools for pathologists.
Deciphex, an innovator in Pathology AI, announces the strategic appointment of Dr. Pierre Moulin as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr Moulin, MD, PhD, MBA has established himself as a distinguished physician-scientist and pathologist, with specialist interest in the realms of data science and artificial intelligence in pathology.
In the challenging and lengthy process of drug development, which typically spans 10 to 15 years and costs an estimated $2.6 billion (1), a dynamic shift is occurring in the approach taken by pharmaceutical companies: quality over quantity.
Most people think of AI as someone teaching a computer to recognize and respond (known as “supervised learning”) to perform a specific task automatically; unsupervised learning involves teaching the computer to recognize and respond to certain things but then allowing it to evolve to learn beyond what it was taught.
Since the 1990s, many innovators to Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 companies have worked to make digital pathology a reality. While not mainstream and perhaps less than 10% of US based pathology groups have any serious implementations of digital pathology, the technology has caught up to our retinas and the legal, regulatory, and business practices have followed along nicely in terms of clinical business practices. Of course, in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe, there have been large scale implementations going back decades, first for frozen sections and within the past decade for whole slide imaging (WSI) for primary diagnosis.
Here is a case from a 3-year-old male Doberman that was exhibiting generalised dry dermatitis and alopecia over the trunk and had been non-responsive to conventional, medical treatment. A series of biopsies were examined digitally here at NationWide Laboratories which showed mild changes within the epidermis including irregularly spaced, hyperpigmented basal epithelial cells and some pigmentary incontinence. Within the dermis, there was very noticeable follicular dysplasia and dense clumps of melanin pigment within the hair bulbs and follicles and even in the hair shafts, including enlarged melanomacrophages surrounding the base of the hair follicles. Overall, within the sections, the hair follicles are atrophied. There were minimal inflammatory cells throughout the sections. These histological features are consistent with chronic pigmentary intrafollicular and intraepidermial melanin clumping and pigmentary incontinence that is consistent with colour dilute/colour mutatnt alopecia or black hair follicular dysplasia and are observed in colour dilute dogs (e.g., blue or fawn colours). The follicular dysplasia often leads to poor hair coat quality and variably alopecia, such as that reported in this case. Hair loss is usually most severe on the trunk, especially dorsally. Secondary bacterial infection can sometimes be seen. This form of colour dilution alopecia is commonly seen in the Doberman Pinscher. As such, this is a classic case and the use of digital pathology allows us to both accurately diagnose the condition, whilst effectively sharing the key histological findings to our trainee pathologists and students. The ability to pan the whole slide image also allows us to quickly make judgements of the most important pathology and hone our attentions to these changes.
Darren Dacosta – MedPath Project Lead
