STTR Phase I: Smartphone-based Slide Scanner for Mobile Digital Pathology

STTR 第一阶段：基于智能手机的移动数字病理学幻灯片扫描仪

• 批准号: 1648888
• 负责人: Hanyang Huang
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: LiveFocus LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1648888&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: STTR; Phase; Smartphone; based; Slide

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to provide an affordable mobile digital pathology solution to pathologists in order to facilitate their clinical practices in disease diagnosis, peer consultations, tumor board preparations, research and education. The low-cost smartphone based portable pathology slide scanner is a complementary solution to current high throughput expensive digital pathology equipment to allow whole slide imaging to penetrate across all tiers of market. Given the high owning rate of mobile devices, the increasing processing and transmission speed, and the versatility of mobile apps, this device brings whole slide imaging at fingertips of individual pathologists. This greatly simplifies intra- and inter- institutional consultations and tumor board preparations, which enhances our fundamental understanding of disease causes and in turn leads to possible cures with improved clinical outcomes. The device also reduces the needs for physical transport of glass slides or tissue blocks to centralized digital imaging equipment. It also provides strong support on timely and accurate diagnosis, especially for those remote to digital imaging equipment. Moreover, this study provides an effective approach for teaching foundational skills of whole slide imaging to the next-generation pathologists. The proposed project is to validate the technical feasibility of using smartphone based portable slide scanner for acquiring pathological slide images with the optical performance comparable or close to those by commercial high-end slide scanners. This device is based on an innovative zoom-microscope design, where elastomer-liquid lenses with low optical aberration are used for changing the zoom ratio. This portable device can reach the optical magnification of 10X-40X and nearly diffraction-limited resolution with small lens diameters (10mm), meeting the imaging requirement by pathologists. In this study, a prototype will be developed to demonstrate image acquisition, scanning, and transmission capabilities using representative mobile devices on the market. The minimal resolvable feature size under each magnification will be examined and compared with those of high-end commercial slide scanners. The minimal magnification increment based on the selected actuation mechanism will be experimentally determined. The images of pathological slides acquired under the same magnification or different magnifications will be stitched together to generate a large field-of-view while retaining the resolution. The stitched images will be sent to pathologists to solicit feedbacks for iterative design optimization.

这个小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为病理学家提供负担得起的移动的数字病理学解决方案，以促进他们在疾病诊断、同行咨询、肿瘤委员会准备、研究和教育方面的临床实践。基于低成本智能手机的便携式病理切片扫描仪是当前高通量昂贵数字病理设备的补充解决方案，允许整个切片成像渗透到所有市场层次。鉴于移动的设备的高拥有率、不断提高的处理和传输速度以及移动的应用程序的多功能性，该设备使整个载玻片成像触手可及。这大大简化了机构内和机构间的咨询和肿瘤委员会的准备工作，这增强了我们对疾病原因的基本理解，进而导致可能的治疗，改善了临床结果。该装置还减少了将载玻片或组织块物理运输到集中式数字成像设备的需要。它还为及时准确的诊断提供了强有力的支持，特别是对于那些远程数字成像设备。此外，本研究提供了一个有效的方法，教学的基本技能，整个幻灯片成像的下一代病理学家。拟议项目旨在验证使用智能手机便携式载玻片扫描仪获取病理载玻片图像的技术可行性，其光学性能与商业高端载玻片扫描仪的光学性能相若或接近。该设备是基于一个创新的变焦显微镜设计，其中具有低光学像差的液体透镜用于改变变焦比。该便携式成像仪的光学放大倍数可达10 X ~ 40 X，分辨率接近衍射极限，透镜直径小（10 mm），可满足病理医生的成像要求。在这项研究中，将开发一个原型，以证明图像采集，扫描和传输功能，使用市场上的代表性移动的设备。将检查每个放大倍数下的最小可分辨特征尺寸，并与高端商业载玻片扫描仪进行比较。将通过实验确定基于所选驱动机制的最小放大倍数增量。将在相同放大率或不同放大率下采集的病理切片图像拼接在一起，以生成大视场，同时保持分辨率。拼接图像将发送给病理学家，以征求反馈，用于迭代设计优化。