Bruce Friedman is Putting Some Numbers to Digital Pathology Adoption Trends by Pathologists, following a survey article in Laboratory Economics:
Nearly everyone agrees that digital imaging will play a big role in pathology in the future. Academic medical centers, commercial labs and large independent pathology labs are rapidly installing digital pathology systems. But its use in reimbursable clinical diagnostics is currently limited. Twenty-two percent of pathology groups and labs currently have a digital imaging system in place, according to LE’s Digital Pathology Trends Survey conducted in June. Ten-percent plan to add a system within 12 months and another 10% within the next 12-to-24 months.
Today, education and training is the most common use for labs using digital pathology. The biggest barrier to more clinical use is the cost of scanning digital slides, which don’t eliminate the need to first prepare glass slides. Among surveyed labs using digital pathology, 72% are using it for education and/or training, according to LE’s Digital Pathology Trends Survey. Sixty-three percent use it for second opinions and/or consultations, and 62% for quantitative immunohistochemistry for HER2 scoring. In terms of market share, 44% of digital pathology users have an Aperio system; BioImagene has a 16% share; Ventana, 9%; and Olympus, 8%. Other vendors have a combined 23% share, including Nikon, Leica Microsystems and Dmetrix.
More than half of surveyed labs without digital pathology cited “too expensive” as a barrier to adoption. Another 36% said traditional pathology/microscope works fine and 23% had LIS integration concerns. Only 15% said digital pathology systems were too slow and only 3% had concerns about image resolution. Meanwhile, Amanda Lowe, principal of Digital Pathology Consultants...believes the limited menu of FDA-cleared tests is a bigger issue than our survey suggests. “There’s no doubt that if the FDA would ‘gold stamp’ digital pathology on the clinical diagnostic end, it would help significantly,” she says.
Great data. Naturally we're delighted to see that so many sites adopting digital pathology are using Aperio scanners and software, but equally we are committed to enhancing the value propositions for digital pathology to drive more adoption. There is a potential network effect underlying adoption of a new technology like this; the more labs adopt it, the more value there is for all labs which have adopted it.


