Telepathology in veterinary diagnostic cytology

Abstract

Telepathology is a branch of telemedicine which includes teledermatology, teleophthalmology, teleradiology, and telesurgery. Telepathology has been described as the practice of pathology through visualization of images indirectly on a computer monitor rather than directly through a microscope and usually entails electronic transmission of the images to a remote site [21, 23]. Telepathology has several potential uses, such as remote primary diagnosis, expert consultation and consensus diagnosis, distant learning and teaching, research, and quality control. Telediagnosis is the most prominent application as it offers the advantage of exchanging histologic and cytologic images for diagnosis and consultation, especially at remote institutions where patholo-gists are not always able to be on-site and in cases in which a second opinion by an expert is required. Currently, when a difficult case is encountered during daily practice, this is carried out by sending the consultant the glass slides or paraffin blocks by courier or ordinary mail, but consultation often takes too long. Telepathology has been considered, in many human cases, an alternative approach. It exists in two basic forms: static and dynamic. In static telepathology (also known as offline or store and forward), the microscope images are captured at one site and are then transmitted by email and viewed at a remote site. In dynamic telepathology, real-time images from a sophisticated robotic microscope are transmitted to a remote site. The remote operator has complete control of the field of view and magnification. © Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2009.