Automated complete slide digitization: a medium for simultaneous viewing by multiple pathologists

Developments in telepathology robotic systems have evolved the concept of a 'virtual microscope' handling 'digital slides'. Slide digitization is a me thod of archiving salient histological features in numerical (digital) form . The value and potential of this have begun to be recognized by several in ternational centres. Automated complete slide digitization has application at all levels of clinical practice and will benefit undergraduate, postgrad uate, and continuing education. Unfortunately, as the volume of potential d ata on a histological slide represents a significant problem in terms of di gitization, storage, and subsequent manipulation, the reality of virtual mi croscopy to date has comprised limited views at inadequate resolution. This paper outlines a system refined in the authors' laboratory, which employs a combination of enhanced hardware, image capture, and processing technique s designed for telepathology. The system is able to scan an entire slide at high magnification and create a library of such slides that may exist on a n internet server or be distributed on removable media (such as CD-ROM or D VD). A digital slide allows image data manipulation at a level not possible with conventional light microscopy. Combinations of multiple users, multip le magnifications, annotations, and addition of ancillary textual and visua l data are now possible. This demonstrates that with increased sophisticati on, the applications of telepathology technology need not be confined to se cond opinion, but can be extended on a wider front. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.