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

这一小型企业技术转移(STTR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是为病理学家提供负担得起的移动数字病理学解决方案，以促进他们在疾病诊断、同行会诊、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对目前高通量、昂贵的数字病理设备的补充解决方案，使整个切片成像可以渗透到所有市场层次。鉴于移动设备的高拥有率，不断提高的处理和传输速度，以及移动应用程序的多功能性，这款设备将整个切片图像带到了个别病理学家的指尖上。这极大地简化了机构内和机构间的会诊和肿瘤委员会的准备工作，从而增强了我们对疾病原因的基本了解，进而导致了可能的治疗方法，改善了临床结果。该设备还减少了将玻璃片或组织块物理传输到中央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，特别是对那些远程到数字成像设备的诊断。此外，本研究还为向下一代病理学家传授整个切片成像的基本技能提供了一条有效的途径。建议的项目是验证使用基于智能手机的便携式载玻片扫描仪获取光学性能与商业高端载玻片扫描仪相当或接近的病理载玻片图像的技术可行性。该装置基于一种创新的变焦显微镜设计，其中使用具有低光学像差的弹性液体透镜来改变变焦比。这种便携式设备可以达到10X-40X的光学放大倍数和接近衍射极限的分辨率，并且透镜直径很小(10 Mm)，满足了病理医生的成像要求。在这项研究中，将开发一个原型，以演示使用市场上有代表性的移动设备进行图像采集、扫描和传输的能力。每个放大倍数下的最小可分辨特征尺寸将被检查，并与高端商业幻灯片扫描仪的特征尺寸进行比较。将通过实验确定基于所选驱动机构的最小放大倍数增量。在相同或不同放大倍数下采集的病理切片图像将被拼接在一起，在保持分辨率的情况下生成大视场。缝合的图像将被发送给病理学家，以征求反馈以进行迭代设计优化。

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.