This solution, developed by Agfa Healthcare (Mortsel, Belgium), is currently in clinical review at the La Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, a 1,600-bed Paris (France) teaching hospital. It includes a high-throughput, whole slide scanning device combined with dedicated workstations used by pathologists to view digital pathology images that support more effective diagnosis through specific clinical applications.

Once slides are digitally scanned, the pathologist selects the regions of interest (ROI) to be automatically integrated into the Impax PACS. Combining digital pathology and radiology images onto the same image-management system results in numerous benefits including improved multidisciplinary team discussions such as tumor boards, better education within teaching hospitals, enhanced research, and more expedient peer review. Integration also provides excellent workflow optimization in terms of image management and enables collaboration between clinicians, radiologists, and pathologists, resulting in improved communications and a more streamlined workflow.

Anatomic pathology is the last medical field to be digitized; radiology, orthopedics, and cardiology have long benefited from the move from analog to digital workflows. “Combining radiology and pathology images represents a critical step towards integrated diagnostics where a multidisciplinary approach and subspecialization are highly used, such as in a large teaching hospital,” said Prof. Philippe Grenier, head of radiology at La Pitié-Salpêtrière. He added that such developments take image management beyond the radiology department toward an enterprise model characterized by wider clinical access, more data from various sources and better communication between medical disciplines. The correlation of radiology and pathology images is expected to provide more efficient, higher quality patient care.
“Digital pathology offers more and better tools. By integrating our digital images within the PACS, I believe we'll reach a new level of clinical care management workflow,” noted Prof. Frédérique Capron, head of pathology at La Pitié-Salpêtrière.

Agfa HealthCare utilized its current expertise in digital imaging informatics, storage, and distribution by offering digital pathology solutions linked to scanning devices and analytic workstations, as well as the integration of pathology images within radiology storage instances. This complete solution facilitates the exchange of clinical data in multiple forms. The solution deployed at La Pitié-Salpêtrière Impax includes Impax PACS. Plans are to expand, in other selected sites, the incorporation within Data Center with Xero viewer for long-term data storage and distribution. The Impax Data Center Viewer, powered by Xero, is an enterprise medical image viewer that allows clinicians secure access to patient information, independent of location, on a variety of web-enabled devices. It serves a major role in creating a longitudinal patient record that can store X-ray images and associated idata, including cardiology and now pathology scans and demographics.

“We are pleased to work with La Pitié-Salpêtrière as part of our commitment to digital pathology,” remarked Jérôme Galbrun, global head of business development, Agfa HealthCare. “The benefits of the digital pathology solution extend far beyond the pathology department. We aim to develop comprehensive solutions to improve access to subspecialty care, greatly increase information sharing, and reduce diagnosis time, particularly in remote locations.”

Agfa HealthCare’s digital pathology solution is now in preclinical validation phase and expected to be available in 2012.

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