Digital Pathology Blog

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Robin Weisburger

Recent Posts

Posted by Robin Weisburger 08/08/2023

International Color Consortium: Enhancing Color Accuracy and Consistency for Your Digital Pathology Images

The ICC Profile: What Is It and Why Is It Important When Considering Digital Pathology Technologies?

Consistency and reliability of image quality is more important than ever as the adoption of digital pathology increases across clinical, education and research workflows.

The International Color Consortium (ICC) has developed a set of standards to be applied in the management of color for digital images. In color management, the ICC profile is a set of data that characterizes a color input or output device or a color space according to standards promulgated by the Consortium.

Topics: Digital Pathology, Pathology, Slide Management

Posted by Robin Weisburger 03/07/2023

Digital Pathology Communication without the Keyboard – Real-time Voice Becomes an Option

Anatomic Pathology has been experiencing a major paradigm shift over the past several years as digital technology provides new ways of performing the daily work. Changes in workflow are affecting all aspects of pathology, whether clinical, research or education.

The early years of whole-slide-scanning offered academic institutions a way to provide teaching sets, resident collections and publication images without requiring technical staff to perform additional recuts, staining procedures and handling of blocks and slides. While there was indeed clinical utilization of telepathology techniques as far back as 19681, widespread use was limited. Over time, however, the use of telepathology became a way to perform intra-operative consultations, share cases, collaborate and seek clinical opinions from colleagues and outside experts.

Topics: Digital Pathology, Telemedicine, Pathology, digital imaging, Telepathology

Posted by Robin Weisburger 06/21/2022

Digital Solutions for Training Today's Pathologists

The strains of the last two plus years have forced us to make many changes to our daily routines, both on a personal and a professional level. Remote interactions have become the norm, with families “zooming” for the holidays and family events, elbow bumps instead of hand-shakes, and remote work conferences and meetings in all walks of life. We are all looking forward to the return to many of our previous lifestyles, but the old adage remains true, out of adversity comes opportunity.

Topics: Digital Pathology, Pathology, digital imaging

Posted by Robin Weisburger 09/14/2021

Covid: A Catalyst for the Accelerated Adoption & Utilization of Digital Pathology

Digital pathology, in one form or another, has been with us for several decades supporting clinical, research and academic applications world-wide. Early use cases for pathology focused primarily on research and teaching. Today, however, whole slide images are playing a larger role in the clinical realm offering remote support for intra-operative procedures, consultations with subspecialty experts and, most recently, primary diagnosis reporting.

Topics: Digital Pathology

Posted by Robin Weisburger 03/10/2020

As Digital Technology Becomes More Capable, the Pathology World Becomes More Connected, Efficient and Accurate

Digital pathology continues to gain momentum and is becoming­ more commonplace in pathology laboratories around the world. The list of compelling reasons to move to a digital pathology platform grows longer every day. A single image of a critical specimen can potentially aid in a patient’s diagnosis, help determine their course of treatment, play a role in research and help educate the next generation of practitioners.

But at its core, moving to a digital pathology platform facilitates the sharing of pathology cases and images among colleagues and teams whose networks are expanding every day.

Topics: Digital Pathology

Posted by Robin Weisburger 11/21/2019

Tele-consultation: Expert Collaboration Any Time, Any Place

Pathologists have long consulted with their colleagues on difficult cases, and today, with their decreasing numbers and the increase in cancer cases world-wide, the ability to collaborate with colleagues at an international level is key to ensuring patients have access to the best diagnostic expertise available no matter where they are located.

Many large medical centers offer pathology consultation services throughout the US and international communities. In addition to formal consult cases, many pathologists share insights with their colleagues in remote locations, benefitting patients as well as the pathologists who learn from each other in these collaborations.

Topics: Telepathology

Posted by Robin Weisburger 08/29/2019

Multidisciplinary Tumor Boards: Improving Patient Outcomes, Locally and Globally

Multidisciplinary Tumor Boards (MTBs) are a standard of practice in all academic medical centers. Studies show that they contribute to improved diagnoses and treatment plans and often lead to improved patient outcomes.1 Moreover, these conferences provide valuable real-life education and training to residents and fellows in all represented disciplines.

Historically, pathologists have encountered unique challenges when participating in MTBs. Even with access to digital images for their presentations, the images are often time consuming to attain and in a static image format. Navigation to other regions of interest within the slide is often not possible, and the patient’s case data is usually in a separate lab information system (LIS). Assembling the case, often in Powerpoint, is time consuming, limiting and frustrating.

Topics: Digital Pathology

Posted by Robin Weisburger 03/19/2019

Change Evolution in the Laboratory: IHC to DP

The acceptance of digital pathology and its implementation across the United States have been met with a fair amount of challenges. Many equate digital pathology’s evolution in the laboratory with radiology’s move from film to digital media. Despite obvious advantages like immediate availability of images for viewing and image storage being reduced to computer drives as opposed to rooms full of film, it took time for radiology to convert to using digital media as a routine matter of business. Pathology is experiencing much of the same resistance.

Topics: Slide Management

Posted by Robin Weisburger 12/11/2018

Part 4: Challenges to providing a digital pathology service at an international level

This article is the fourth in a four-part series highlighting the evolution of digital pathology and its impact on the access to pathology services throughout the world. If you missed it you can find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

Topics: Slide Management

Posted by Robin Weisburger 12/04/2018

Part 3: A Timeline of Global Pathology Initiatives

This article is the third in a four-part series highlighting the evolution of digital pathology and its impact on the access to pathology services throughout the world. If you missed it you can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Topics: Slide Management