Digital Pathology at the Crossroads of Major Health Care Trends Corporate Innovation as an Engine for Change
Digital Pathology at the Crossroads of Major Health Care Trends Corporate Innovation as an Engine for Change
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DOI：
10.1043/1543-2165-133.4.555
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发表时间：
2009-04-01
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Soenksen, Dirk
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Soenksen, Dirk
从根本上说，数字病理学是一个信息管理游戏。它是管理和解释信息的环境。这不是患者信息，而是能够处理整个数字载玻片的信息。数字病理学令人兴奋的原因是，第一次，它有可能以这样一种方式对整个载玻片进行扫描，即显示在计算机显示器上的数字载玻片的分辨率基本上相当于你在显微镜下看到的。这为使用数字病理学来解决病理学家今天面临的一些挑战开辟了许多可能性和机会。我想进一步解释一下数字病理学的定义，并解释我们如何看待它。数字病理学包括4个关键要素。首先，有幻灯片扫描技术，这基本上是要求在游戏中。您需要一台扫描仪，可以在合理的时间内扫描整个载玻片，并且您希望具有足够高的分辨率，以便您可以放心地在数字载玻片中准确地表示载玻片上的信息。如果你想做血液学，你需要油浸超高分辨率扫描。如果你只是做典型的活检，你通常可以在20和40扫描。如果你想做细胞学检查，你需要上下聚焦。如果你想做荧光，你需要有不同类型的光源等等。然后，您需要能够管理所有的数字幻灯片图像。正如我们在放射学世界中所知道的，这有一个图像存档和通信系统（PACS）的名字，但本质上你需要一个软件，它允许你管理这些数字幻灯片图像，就像你用Microsoft Outlook管理电子邮件一样。你只需要图像管理软件，当然，你可以让这样的软件非常复杂。
Fundamentally, digital pathology is an informationmanagement play. It is an environment for managing and interpreting information. This is not patient information but information that is enabled by being able to deal with an entire digital slide. The reason digital pathology is exciting is that, for the first time, it is possible to digitize an entire glass slide in such a way that the resolution of the digital slide displayed on the computer monitor is essentially equivalent to what you can see under the microscope. That opens up a number of possibilities and opportunities for using digital pathology to address some of the challenges that pathologists are having today. I want to take the definition of digital pathology a little bit further and explain the way we think about it. Digital pathology comprises 4 key elements. First, there is slide scanning technology, which is basically required to be ‘‘in the game.’’You need to have a scanner that can digitize the entire slide in a reasonable amount of time and you want to have high enough resolution so that you are comfortable that the information on the glass slide is represented accurately in the digital slide. If you want to do hematology, you need ultra-high resolution scanning with oil immersion. If you just do typical biopsies, you can usually scan at 20 and 40. If you want to do cytology, you need to go up and down through focus. If you want to do fluorescence, you are going to need to have different types of light sources and so forth for that. You then need to be able to manage all the digital slide images. As we know in the radiology world, this has the name of picture archiving and communication system (PACS), but essentially you need software that is going to allow you to manage these digital slide images in the same way that you manage your e-mail with Microsoft Outlook. You just need image management software and, of course, you can make such software very sophisticated.