The Daily Scan

pictures from an exhibition: USCAP 2010

Greetings blog public: Last week Aperio attended the USCAP Conference in Washington DC en masse, with a huge 30’ x 50’ exhibit booth, a good number of our crack marketing and sales staff, and a solid representation of our senior team.

A highlight of this show – which was attended by over 4,500 pathologists, of whom nearly 40% came from outside the U.S. – was the presentation of a Distinguished Pathologist Award to Dr. Juan Rosai, who flew out from Milan, Italy to receive it.  The ceremony featured some nice remarks by Dr. Victor Reuter, Dr. Rosai’s onetime student, about the special tradition in pathology of teaching and the role seminars have played in educating pathologists.  Dr. Rosai is the world’s foremost expert in surgical pathology, and he is known for the incredible collection of slides he has amassed, going back to Dr. Lauren Ackerman, who was Dr. Rosai’s teacher.  Aperio is working with Dr. Rosai and USCAP to digitize this entire collection – including all the supporting case details and seminar notes – and to publish it online, free to all pathologists as an incredible decision support reference. 

For this show, Aperio worked with USCAP to publish a “sneak preview” of the Rosai Collection on SecondSlide.com, and made the collection available in the Aperio booth.

The Aperio booth featured stations for brightfield and fluorescence scanning, Spectrum, and image analysis, in addition to the featured Rosai Collection area.  We also showed a “case of the day” and hosted an ongoing challenge for pathologists to score ER and PR slides.  Oh, and did I mention we had two meeting rooms in the booth?  And numerous spiffy Barco high-resolution monitors?  And a large touchscreen display?  And a four-panel “wall of images” continuously displaying ScanScope slides?  I’m probably leaving things out, too :)

Our booth was amazingly busy all week.   I think it was the most traffic I’ve ever seen through an Aperio booth, ever.

USCAP is a research-oriented conference, and nearly 2,000 posters were submitted.  Each year we scan the abstracts to find references to digital pathology; this year 18 mentioned Aperio.  That’s leadership!  Which Aperio Product Manager Chrystal Adams proudly showed off with a nice poster in the booth…

Among all the great things that happened, the coolest moment of the show (for me at least) was when Dr. Juan Rosai paid a visit to our booth.  Several Aperions were showing the Rosai Collection to an interested group of visitors when who should appear but Dr. Rosai himself, and [of course] he immediately offered some comments on a case from 1945 which was being displayed :)  An amazing moment in an otherwise amazing show.

Aperio Product Manager Karen Gustashaw with newly elected Digital Pathology Association Executive Director Mike Miller.  Among other things, the DPA will be running the 2010 Pathology Visions conference.

The new Aperio ScanScope FL flourescence scanner was on display and scanning away.  A lot of vendors chose the USCAP show to introduce new whole-slide imaging scanners or digital pathology software capabilities.  It is remarkable the extent to which digital pathology has become an accepted technology over such a short time.

Last but not least, here's a picture of me (Ole Eichhorn, Aperio's Chief Technology Officer), with Dr. Savitri Krishnamurthy of M.D. Anderson and Aperio's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jared Schwartz.

It was a great conference and I enjoyed every minute of a long week.

iPhone medical app denied 510(k)

This isn't directly relevant to digital pathology, but I thought it was interesting; the Healthcare IT Consultant Blog has posted an interview: iPhone medical app denied 510(k):

“The iPhone has created a new direction for our company,” Mark Cain, CTO, MIMvista said in June 2008.  “We have taken a complex desktop application removed it from the realm of black art and placed it in the hands of physicians and patients.  And we have only just scratched the surface.”  Cain’s remarks were part of his presentation at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in June 2008 — the event at which Apple launched the AppStore.  Cain’s app, Mobile MIM, was included among the very first applications in Apple’s AppStore.  Shortly after becoming available for download from the AppStore, however, the app was removed from the store and has not yet returned.  The reason?  FDA regulation.  MobiHealthNews recently caught up with Cain, who detailed MIMvista’s experiences with the FDA over these past two years.  Read on for more about MIMvista’s wireless health regulatory headache.

I found this interesting on several levels; first, the increasing relevance of smartphones (and tablets) for delivery of medical applications, second, the need for (and difficulty in obtaining) FDA regulatory approval for such applications, and third, the interplay between the platform provider (Apple) and the application vendor (MIMvista). 

We will continue to follow this with great interest :)

Aperio 2010 Spring Seminar Series

2010 Spring Locations: April 12 –Cambridge, MA April 13 –Zurich, Switzerland April 14 –Warwick, UK April 15 –Amsterdam, Netherlands April 15 –Philadelphia, PA April 16 –Chapel Hill, NC Meet and network with fellow pathologists, histologists, biostatisticians, researchers, informaticians, and biologists to share ideas about implementing digital pathology in drug development, academic, and research environments. The Digital Pathology Seminars are complimentary. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. Seminar Topics: ·  Hands-On Workshop: Slide Scanning 101 ·  Spectrum Plus: Organizing Your Digital Slides ·  Image Analysis: Tools for Analyzing Histology ·  Measuring Fat and Vacuolar Space Using Digital Pathology ·  Tissue Microarrays as a Dynamic Research Tool ·  The Benefits of Using Digital Pathology in Conjunction with Radiology ·  Overcoming Psychological Barriers to Adoption of Digital Pathology and Other Novel Technologies  Please Join Us! To RSVP for US locations, contact Nicole Siska, Aperio US Events Team, at 1.760.539.1193 or email nsiska@aperio.com. To RSVP for European locations, contact Bethan LawrenceJones, Aperio European Events Team, at +44 (0) 1633 416621 or email bethan@aperio.com. Additional seminar information including complete schedules will be posted soon.  Check the Aperio Events page for updates! Learn more about Aperio's events. Follow us on Twitter @aperiodp. Can't attend these Seminars? Attend Pathology Visions, the annual meeting of the Digital Pathology Association (DPA). Visit www.pathologyvisions.com for more information.

“Do It Yourself” Dermatopathology Will Use Consumer’s Cell Phone Images

The Dark Report have posted an interesting article: “Do It Yourself” Dermatopathology Will Use Consumer’s Cell Phone Images:

A “do it yourself” dermatopathology service for consumers is coming soon, according to Health Discovery Corporation (HDC) of Savannah, Georgia.  The company is preparing to introduce a cell phone-based tool to help consumers recognize whether a mole or other skin lesion needs examination by a dermatologist.

Using their cell phone cameras, consumers would click a photo of the skin lesion, then forward that image to a computer at HDC.  Using pattern recognition algorithms developed by the company, called Support Vector Machines, the computer would analyze the image.  A report telling the consumer whether the lesion was low, medium or high risk for skin cancer would be sent as a text message.  This text message would include a list of dermatologists located near the consumer.  The list of dermatologist referrals would be targeted to the user’s geographic area.  HPC would compile this list, based on GPS data collected from the cell phone transmission.

Huh, interesting.  What do you think, will consumers do this?

at USCAP

Greetings y'all - I am attending the USCAP conference in Washington DC, I know many of you are too...  would love to meet you.  Please shoot me email at ole@aperio.com if you'd like to meet, or just ask for me at the Aperio booth in the Exhibit Hall.  It should be a great conference, please stay tuned for my thoughts afterward...

chalk tip #36: using SecondSlide to share any images with anyone

Greetings, you're going to like today's tip, because with SecondSlide.com you can share any images with anyone.  And it's FREE. 

If you'd like click on the SecondSlide.com link to open a new window, and we can do this together.

1. On the SecondSlide home page, click "Sign Up" in the top right corner.  You'll see this:
   
    
    
   
   
2. Fill in the form with your name and email address, and click Sign Up.  You will see this form:
   
    
    
3. You will receive an email from SecondSlide welcoming you to the service.  This email includes a temporary password.  Enter your email address and the temporary password, and click User Login.  You will see this form:
   
    
    
4. Enter a new password (in both fields) and click Save.  You'll see this page:
   
    
   
5. Okay, you're signed up!  Now let's share some images.  Click on Upload a New Case.  You'll see this page:
    
   
    
6. Enter the email address of the person with whom you want to share images.  (You can send the images to more than one person, just separate their email addresses with a comma.)  Note that recipients don't have to have joined SecondSlide, you can share with anyone. 
   
   Use the check boxes to specify whether you allow recipients to modify the case information, and whether you allow them to re-share the case.  Then click Share Case.  You will see this page:
   
    
    
   
7. In the top of the page, you can specify Case Information.  You don't have to enter anything at all, but if you'd like enter as much information as necessary to describe the image(s) you are sending.  You can also enter Specimen Information if you'd like.
8. Next scroll the page down to the Digital Slide Information, which looks like this:
   
    
    
   
9. Here you identify the slides and images you wish to share.  There can be multiple images for each slide, as well as multiple slides in the case.  To specify the image(s) for the a slide, click the Images of Slide button.  You will see the following dialog:
   
    
    
   
10. Next select one or more images for the slide on your computer.  SecondSlide supports many different kinds of images, including SVS, JPEG, TIFF, JP2, etc.  The images can be large whole-slide images created by a scanner, or smaller photomicrographs made with a camera on a microscope.  After you have selected the image(s), click Open.  The Case Information page will look like this:
    
     
      
11. You will see one line for each image you selected (I selected three in the example above). 
12. You could add images for another slide to the case being shared by clicking the Add Digital Slide button, but in this example let's say we have only one slide.  Next click Add Case.  
13. The images you specified will each be uploaded to SecondSlide.  Depending on the size of the images, this could happen almost instantly, or could take a few minutes.  You will see progress indications as the slides are copied:
    
     
    
    When all the images have been uploaded, you'll see a "Case Successfully Shared" message.
14. That's it, you're done!  

Your recipient(s) will receive an email notification that a SecondSlide case has been shared with them.  If they have not already joined SecondSlide, they will be walked through the process, and then they'll be able to view the images you've shared with them.  

That's it, you can use SecondSlide.com to share any images with anyone, for FREE.  And all without installing any software!

Registration Is Open for Pathology Visions 2010

JOIN US FOR PATHOLOGY VISIONS 2010 The Annual Meeting of the Digital Pathology Association Sheraton San Diego Hotel San Diego, California October 24-27, 2010   CONTACT INFORMATION www.pathologyvisions.com info@pathologyvisions.com Tel 760.539.1193 HERE'S A LOOK AT WHAT 2009 ATTENDEES HAD TO SAY: "I am excited to come back next year to see the advances in digital pathology." "Great meeting - I learned a lot about the practical applications in digital pathology."

Registration Is Open for Pathology Visions 2010! Join us October 24-27, 2010, at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina on the beautiful San Diego bay, for the largest digital pathology event in 2010. Enjoy thought-provoking discussions on digital pathology applications and enrich your conference experience through the following: Exciting presentations on new applications Peer-to-peer discussions on digital pathology  Hands-on workshops Scientific poster sessions Digital pathology demonstrations Networking events Call for Abstracts Submit your abstract to be an oral or poster presenter at Pathology Visions. As a presenter, you can share your experiences with digital pathology, regardless of the application, and/or discuss potential uses for digital pathology in the future. Abstracts are now being accepted. Deadline for priority consideration is June 1. To submit your abstract, click here. About the Digital Pathology Association (DPA) The mission of the DPA is to facilitate awareness of digital pathology applications in healthcare. Members are encouraged to share best practices and promote the use of the technology among colleagues in order to demonstrate efficiencies, awareness, and its ultimate benefits to patient care. To learn more or apply for membership, visit www.digitalpathologyassociation.org.   For more information, visit www.pathologyvisions.com

 

more tweeting!

Hi everyone - just wanted to let y'all know, we're going to start Tweeting a bit more... up 'till now we've used our Twitter feed as a way to let you know when we've posted something on the blog.  Which is great, but a lot of other stuff happens at Aperio too, and we want to let you know about all of those things.  So, please follow us on Twitter and we'll keep you posted!

Google Health gains partners

CNet reports Google Health gains partners:

Google is moving forward in the booming health care technology market.

The search giant this week announced several new partnerships designed to expand its free Google Health service.

Google Health is the company's attempt to offer an online medical portal where you can research medical conditions and issues, find doctors and health care professionals, and track down other health-related Web sites. You can also compile and store a health profile by adding test results, names of medications, insurance information, and electronic medical records from your computer or from third-party partners.

...

Additionally, Google is teaming up with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), Citizen Memorial Healthcare (CMH), and Iatric Systems. Patients who use these providers will now be able to link their Google Health accounts to retrieve and organize their medical records.

Huh, interesting. With their relationships with Mayo and Cleveland Clinic, Microsoft’s HealthVault looked to have leading momentum in the public EHR space, but I guess we can’t count out Google quite yet.

Omnyx Licenses Olympus Digital Pathology Patents

Omnyx Licenses Olympus Digital Pathology Patents:

Olympus America Inc. has signed a nonexclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Omnyx, LLC, a joint venture of GE Healthcare and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, allowing Omnyx to access an extensive portfolio of Olympus America patents in the field of virtual microscopy and digital pathology, to help develop solutions in the digital pathology field. The agreement helps clear the path for future imaging and data handling technologies that may one day facilitate the way doctors review and manage millions of biopsy slides and other pathology specimens now handled using glass slides and traditional optical microscopes.

The patents involved in the licensing agreement cover software and technology related to creating, storing and delivering virtual microscopy images. Virtual microscope slides enable professionals to review biopsies and other pathology images without handling traditional glass slides, and allow doctors to share high-resolution digital microscope images over the Internet for remote pathology consultation.

Aperio has licensed these patents also, from the portfolio original developed by Bacus Labs, which is now part of Olympus.  This seems to foreshadow the increasing importance of intellectual property as the digital pathology market matures.