DIGITAL IMAGING IN ANATOMIC PATHOLOGY

Advances in computer technology continue to bring new innovations to d epartments of anatomic pathology. This article briefly reviews the pre sent status of digital optical imaging, and explores the directions th at this technology may lead over the next several years. Technical req uirements for digital microscopic and gross imaging, and the available options for image archival and retrieval are summarized. The advantag es of digital images over conventional photography in the conference r oom, and the usefulness of digital imaging in the frozen section suite and gross room, as an adjunct to surgical signout and as a resource f or training and education, are discussed. An approach to the future co nstruction of digital histologic sections and the computer as microsco pe is described. The digital technologic applications that are now ava ilable as components of the surgical pathologist's workstation are enu merated. These include laboratory information systems, computerized vo ice recognition, and on-line or CD-based literature searching, texts a nd atlases and, in some departments, on-line image databases. The auth ors suggest that, in addition to these resources that are already avai lable, tomorrow's surgical pathology workstation will include network- linked digital histologic databases, on-line software for image analys is and 3-D image enhancement, expert systems, and ultimately, advanced pattern recognition capabilities. In conclusion, the authors submit t hat digital optical imaging is likely to have a significant and positi ve impact on the future development of anatomic pathology.