IMAGE SELECTION IN STATIC TELEPATHOLOGY THROUGH THE INTERNET

A telepathology study was carried out to examine the differences occur ring when the images were selected by an experienced pathologist, a ju nior pathologist and a first-year resident. One hundred and fifty-five consecutive frozen-section pathology cases were collected and sent fo r consultation to a remote experienced pathologist using multimedia em ail. Local diagnoses (as reported in the files of the Institute, not f rom the image selector) and remote diagnoses (based on the images) wer e compared with those performed on paraffin-embedded sections. Acquisi tion time and number of selected images were recorded for each case an d used to compare the different behaviour of the three local pathologi sts. Of the 155 cases sent by telepathology, four were considered insu fficient for a diagnosis by the remote pathologist and thus the diagno sis was postponed. In the remaining 151 cases, the overall diagnostic agreement between remote and definitive diagnosis was 96.7%. The resul ts indicate that in the routine diagnostic work of a frozen-section se rvice, an inexperienced pathologist can select images which are suffic iently informative for a remote diagnosis, in a sufficiently short tim e.