With the advent of digitalization, the education sector has also taken new strides to adapt and evolve in the changing times. Professionals and institutions have turned to more digital solutions that are remotely accessible and pathology education is no new name in the game.
Digital pathology has significantly contributed to the transformation of medical education in a variety of ways across medical institutes. The sector was among the early adopters of digital pathology technology, employing a broad range of pathological learning to educate undergraduate and postgraduate students through Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and External Quality Assurance (EQA).
Digital pathology is becoming increasingly important in clinical pathology research and practice. It focuses on managing information gathered from digitized slides, allowing digital image sharing across locations for education, research, and diagnosis, and assisting in the detailed and quantitative analysis of tissues through features such as viewing from different angles or zooming in or out.
Digital Slides – Technological Innovation…
The process of creating virtual images with the aid of an advanced motorized microscope known as a "virtual microscope" is known as digital pathology.
A virtual microscope is a trinocular microscope with robotic control of various adjustments such as illumination, mechanical stage movement in the x and y axes, objective change, and coarse and fine focusing of the section.
The slide is scanned at the magnification selected, and hundreds of pictures of the section are taken automatically by the equipment, which is also known as a "digital scanner". Before the image is captured, each field is auto-focused.
After scanning, the tiled pictures captured in millions of pixels are stitched and blended using software to produce a composite picture that is an exact replica of the tissue section. The resulting image is automatically saved in the computer.
The image is known as a digital slide, whole slide image, virtual image, or e-slide, and it has the same properties as the original section. If the scanning quality of the section was not optimal, the image quality can be improved in terms of color saturation, brightness, and contrast using software.
A digital slide, like a glass slide, can be viewed at any magnification on the screen of a computer or laptop, and any area of the slide can be viewed. Large monitors or wall-sized screens are extremely useful in classroom teaching. An image can be annotated to highlight important features, which is very useful for undergraduate teaching.
Glass slides that are viewed under a microscope are used in traditional histology and pathology teaching to students. However, certain issues arise for both teachers and students for a variety of reasons. Glass slides are
Fragile and break
Staining fades with storage.
Air bubbles,
Fungal growth,
Mounting medium discoloration,
Artefacts develop with time, necessitating the preparation of new glass slide sets at regular intervals.
In newly established medical and dental colleges where tissue for slide preparation is not readily available, institutions must rely on slide purchases from vendors. Because the number of microscopes is sometimes far less than the number of students, each microscope is shared by two or more students.
Teachers are unable to explain the slides to every student in many colleges due to a staff shortage. Students do not have the freedom to view the slides at their leisure or convenience, so they are constrained by the availability of microscopes in the classroom.
WSIs or virtual slides help to solve many of these issues because they are not breakable, do not fade or develop artefacts, and do not require set preparation on a regular basis. Once prepared or obtained from a vendor, slides are saved on a computer hard disc and are easily retrievable.
These slides can be annotated to show prominent structures of the lesion for ease of teaching and student’s understanding. Students can view slides on their laptops while the teacher shows the slide on his laptop, promoting interactive learning. There are no time or space constraints because students can view the slides at any time and from any location. As a result, digital pathology is an excellent tool for self-study.
Reap the Benefits…
According to a recent research report, the Global Digital Pathology Market will grow at a CAGR of around 14% between 2022 and 2027. These solutions have assisted in overcoming several educational challenges that existed with traditional methods such as microscopes and glass slides. Among these aspects are the following:
Improved Learning
As we transition from the physical world to a digital environment, particularly in pathology, education with digital pathology offers a wide range of advantages. It enables users to view a slide from various perspectives and zoom in or out for better visualization. Users can also align images at the same time for a more accurate comparison of different tissues.
Furthermore, several educational institutes can use digital pathology to annotate diverse areas of interest and dig deeper for deeper analysis which was not possible in traditional pathological practices. Users can obtain tutorials and questions with contextual information and references using advanced digital pathology software for education.
Course Material Standardization
Digital Pathology enables all students to see and observe the same content, resulting in a consistent learning experience and quality education. Digital pathology also aids in the delivery of rare and complex course materials by requiring only one digital copy of the slide for a standard class size.
Improved Accessibility
Users can gain better access to tissues and slides outside of the laboratory with the help of Digital Pathology, and these systems provide digital access to courses via the internet and a standard web browser on a personal computer, smartphone, tablet, and other devices. It enables users to view slides from any location at any time. Furthermore, these systems support CPD and EQA schemes, which help reduce extra laboratory costs and circulation turnaround time because the slides are not shipped physically across locations but rather via online data transmission modes.
Transform for Future…
With the advent of digital pathology, healthcare transformation is allowing such technologies to address a variety of laboratory problems. As a result, digital pathology is rapidly shaping the future of healthcare in a variety of ways. Despite its slow adoption in many institutes, digital pathology is rapidly replacing traditional methods of data analysis on glass slides under the microscope.
Furthermore, advantages such as flexibility, accuracy, faster results, and the potential to deliver ever-improving informatics and image analysis tools are expected to make digital pathology an appealing option in the coming years, boosting its adoption across various regions.
Nonetheless, with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, digital pathology has seen a surge across various research and healthcare institutions to achieve faster and more accurate results, allowing pathologists to efficiently manage workload and diagnose samples while remotely working and ensuring virus safety. If the students are exposed to the technology and digital pathology interface, they will perform better in future endeavors and opportunities.
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