Digital Pathology

Digital pathology can be considered as an adjunct to traditional microscopy. In traditional microscopy, we require a microscope to view the glass slide. We can only view one slide, one field of view, and one exaggeration at a time. If we want to do any sort of analysis with a microscope, we have to remember the information from each field of view. In digital pathology, we have the benefit of doing things different way. We can view some digital slides on a computer monitor. We can combine them side-by-side if we want to calculate the entire cells or calculate protein expression; these can be done easily by computer software that can be seen on an image file and it is called a digital slide.

In case of traditional microscopy, if we want to transfer the data with someone in a distant place, the slide has to be mailed. But with Digital Pathology, we can transmit the data with anyone in the world directly.

It is also comparatively very easy to integrate a Digital Pathology system into a laboratory data system. Digital pathology can support the monitoring and consolidation of different sources of information required for pathological purposes to do work more proficiently and innovatively.

Medical imaging is the technique and process of creating visual representations of the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention. medical imaging constitutes a sub-discipline of biomedical engineering, medical physics or medicine depending on the context: Research and development in the area of instrumentation, image acquisition (e.g. Radiography), modeling and quantification are usually the preserve of biomedical engineering, medical physics, and computer science; Research into the application and interpretation of medical images is usually the preserve of radiology and the medical sub-discipline relevant to medical condition or area of medical science (neuroscience, cardiology, psychiatry, psychology, etc.) under investigation. Many of the techniques developed for medical imaging also have scientific and industrial applications.

Digital imaging offers many advantages over conventional film based imaging, the most compelling of which is the ability to store, retrieve, distribute and review images at any time and in any location which is appropriately networked. This means that the referring physician, the patient and the radiologist can all be in different locations, both to one another and to the stored image, but still communicate effectively. They do not even need to communicate at the same time.

Imaging informatics involve the computerized management of imaging data and related information, extending from patient demographic information and referral data to reports, statistics and image diagnosis, review and distribution through teleradiology platforms.

Telepathology is the practice of pathology at a distance. It uses telecommunications technology to facilitate the transfer of image-rich pathology data between distant locations for the purposes of diagnosis, education, and research.

Telepathology has been successfully used for many applications, including the rendering of histopathology tissue diagnoses at a distance. Although digital pathology imaging, including virtual microscopy, is the mode of choice for telepathology services in developed countries, analog telepathology imaging is still used for patient services in some developing countries.

Telepathology is currently being used for a wide spectrum of clinical applications including diagnosing of frozen section specimens,primary histopathology diagnoses, second opinion diagnoses, subspecialty pathology expert diagnoses, education,compentency assessment, and research. Benefits of telepathology include providing immediate access to off-site pathologists for rapid frozen section diagnoses. Another benefit can be gaining direct access to subspecialty pathologists such as a renal pathologist, a neuropathologist, or a dermatopathologist, for immediate consultations.

Virtual microscopy and advances in machine learning have paved the way for the ever-expanding field of Digital Pathology. Multiple image-based computing environments capable of performing automated quantitative and morphological analyses are the foundation on which Digital Pathology is built. The applications for Digital Pathology in the clinical setting are numerous and are explored along with the digital software environments themselves, as well as the different analytical modalities specific to Digital Pathology.

The potential of Digital Pathology is vast, particularly with the introduction of numerous software environments available for use. With all the Digital Pathology tools available as well as those in development, the field will continue to advance, particularly in the era of personalized medicine, providing health care professionals with more precise prognostic information as well as helping them guide treatment decisions.

Pathology informatics is an interdisciplinary information science discipline primarily concerned with the collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information to solve problems in pathology.

Informatics is the study of the structure, behaviour, and interactions of natural and engineered computational systems. Informatics studies the representation, processing, and communication of information in natural and engineered systems. It has computational, cognitive and social aspects.

Pathology Informatics focuses on the management and analysis of clinical and research pathology data using modern computing, communications and digital imaging techniques.

Diagnostic Pathology  is a branch deals with examination of body tissues and their examination. Microscopical study of abnormal tissue development, disease determination, histopathology of lesions and sometimes post-mortem. It does research on critical diagnosis in surgical pathology.

It is exciting to consider the potential that the revolution in genomics, proteomics, and computational biology will have on the future of diagnostic pathology and laboratory medicine.

Biomedical engineering (BME) is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g. diagnostic or therapeutic). This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine, combining the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to advance health care treatment, including diagnosis, monitoring, and therapy.

Prominent biomedical engineering applications include the development of biocompatible prostheses, various diagnostic and therapeutic medical devices ranging from clinical equipment to micro-implants, common imaging equipment such as MRIs and EEGs, regenerative tissue growth, pharmaceutical drugs and therapeutic biological.

Image Analysis software provides easy-to-use solutions for the automated quantitative evaluation of bright field and fluorescent slides. Powerful image analysis solutions combined with an intuitive interface enables users to easily tailor algorithms to their own specific needs.

The broad menu of trainable algorithms can be run on whole slide images, regions of interest or batches of slides, with a range of deployment options to meet your unique requirements. Automated quantification of complex staining enables researchers to interpret biomarker expression and stratify individuals and cohorts. Improve accuracy, standardization and reproducibility in tissue analysis by removing the subjectivity and inter- / intra-observer variability inherent in manual review.

New technology is transforming Digital Pathology and has the potential to enhance diagnostics in several ways. These include improving the integration of data, consultation among experts, and quantitative and qualitative image analysis.

Slowly but surely, healthcare is going digital. Many of the recent innovations in healthcare, from telemedicine and smart devices to the growing capabilities in managing big data, can be traced back to the adoption of new digital technologies that have fostered a different way of working. Across medicine’s varied specialty areas, however, the adoption and progress of digital technology advances varies significantly.

Whole slide imaging (WSI) uses computerized technology to scan and convert entire pathology glass slides into digital images at high resolution, which are then made available to pathologists. One of the most important aspects of digitization of slides is the ability to perform image analysis and computer-aided diagnostic tools on WSI.

We are living in an exciting time when disease diagnostics and treatment are becoming more accurate and patient specific. Computerized imaging methods are beginning to assist the pathologist and radiologist in making an accurate diagnosis of disease and identify morphological features correlated with prognosis. Molecular profiling of disease promises to help the clinician understand the underlying biology of the disease and suggest new and more effective therapeutics.

The goal of our research is aimed at a future when disease diagnostics will involve the quantitative integration of multiple sources of diagnostic data, including genomic, imaging, proteomic and metabolic data acquired across multiple scales/resolutions that can distinguish between individuals or between subtle variations of the same disease to guide therapy.

Biomedical Informatics is the field that is concerned with the optimal use of information, often aided by the use of technology and people, to improve individual health, health care, public health, and biomedical research. Biomedical Informatics is positioned with scientific, financial, and regulatory challenges faced by the healthcare industry to apply technology know-how at every step from design to execution and to FDA application.

Biomedical informatics (BMI) is the interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective uses of biomedical data, information, and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving, and decision making, motivated by efforts to improve human health.

This course will provide a high level introduction to the field and will serve as a Launchpad into other more focused courses that explore the computational and analytic needs of BMI, as well as the clinical, research and translational application of informatics.

Radiology is a specialty that uses medical imaging to diagnose and treat diseases seen within the body. A variety of imaging techniques such as X-ray radiography, ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), nuclear medicine including positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are used to diagnose and/or treat diseases. Interventional radiology is the performance of medical procedures with the guidance of imaging technologies.

Diagnostic radiology is concerned with the use of various imaging modalities to aid in the diagnosis of disease. Diagnostic radiology can be further divided into multiple sub-specialty areas. Interventional radiology, one of these sub-specialty areas, uses the imaging modalities of diagnostic radiology to guide minimally invasive surgical procedures.

Therapeutic radiology—as it is now called, radiation oncology uses radiation to treat diseases such as cancer using a form of treatment called radiation therapy.

The role of medical informatics in telemedicine is dependent on using the power of the computerized database to not only feed patient specific information to the health care providers, but to use the epidemiological and statistical information in the data base to improve decision making and ultimately care. The computer is also a powerful tool to facilitate standardizing and monitoring of care and when applied in continuous quality improvement methodology it can enhance the improvement process well beyond what can be done by hand. The coupling of medical informatics with telemedicine allows sophisticated medical informatics systems to be applied in low population density and remote areas.

Dermatopathology involve study of the microscopic morphology of skin sections. It mirrors pathophysiologic changes occurring at the microscopic level in the skin and its appendages. Sometimes, we come across certain morphologic features that bear a close resemblance to our physical world.

The complete sequencing of the human genome has ushered in an era of medical advances that was previously unimaginable.Scientists are continually discovering novel genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that are associated with human disease states and therapeutic responses. The ability to determine the underlying defect in single-gene diseases, many of which are rare, has improved both diagnosis in symptomatic patients and risk prediction of future disease in asymptomatic individuals.