Digital Pathology extends the limits of microscopy, allowing educators, students, clinicians, and students to share the tissue samples easily. Image sent or shared through specific analysis software or over the internet paves the way to a new and exciting microscopy tool.
Benefits of Digital Pathology
People who utilize a microscope potentially leverage the digitized pathology images. Before the advent of this innovation, histological slides and photographs were the primary ways to share the images seen under a microscope with others.
However, Digital Pathology eliminates issues related to sharing slides like degradation of samples and the inability to share samples of live cells. Besides preserving quality, specimen images can be shared with others promptly. Its benefits include:
Diagnostics – A hospital can send images globally, probably reducing the actual time it usually takes to diagnose and treat a pathogen.
Education – Colleges or universities can access a massive database of samples online or via a network database, thus saving money for histological slides. Students and professors will also be able to study images of live and dead cells.
Finances – Savings can be done by reducing or eliminating the purchases of cover-slips, glass slides, adhesives and dyes, and the cost to preserve as well as share pathology specimens to institutions and colleagues.
Suppose a pathologist from Mohs Laboratory and another peer pathologist from any other lab want to test a sample together from two different places. Using networking tools, they both can make this possible and assure that they are discussing the same aspect of the sample. They can also reproduce digital slides an infinite number of times and send images uploaded on specific software applications.
The Future of Digital Pathology
When scientists identify new compounds or unusual tissue findings, they often collaborate with a host of colleagues. If a blood disease or new air begins to appear, scientists and doctors reach out to as many as possible peers to figure out its diagnosis and solution.
In such situations, Digital Pathology can come in handy and save time, money, and lives. Scientists across the globe can observe and discuss the same sample using this technology.
Sharing information remotely and rapidly will benefit affluent urban areas as well as rural areas by serving patients in a better manner. Additionally, lesser-known pathogens that appear in third world nations might be detected quicker, thus increasing the number of researchers to find their cures.
Imaging analysis software can also be utilized to identify anomalies within a single sample or create a quantitative database. High-tech instruments can detect morphology and structure; the sensitivity of specific pathology analysis can even include a protein or genetic profile.
Final takeaway
Digital Pathology or Digital Imaging technology is gaining mass adoption globally by advancing possibilities in the realm of microscopy and providing a way to preserve, send, duplicate, and study a specimen.
