6th ESACP Congress, Heidelberg, April 7-11, 1999

A133
DYNAMIC TELEPATHOLOGY THROUGH THE INTERNET
Szymas J 1, Wolf G 2

1) Department of Pathology, University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland 2) Institute of Pathology, University Hospital Charité, Berlin, Germany

A fully robotic microscope and digital high-resolution camera mounted on this microscope have been connected to a computer dedicated as an Internet server. This server was available by means of an Internet browser with an interpreter of the Java programming language to control a remote telemicroscope. At the client's side any additional software was necessary. The robotic microscope with access to the Internet can be remotely controlled from any place in the world. The user can move the microscope stage, change the magnification or can execute any other microscope operations by pressing the related buttons of the downloaded telemicroscopy client program. The microscope server receives the commands from the client program, executes the operation on the microscope and after every new command distributes the next microscope image to the connected telemicroscopy clients. There is also a software module allowing discussion and marking a field of interest. Every Internet user can control the remote microscope and discuss the images with other who have direct access to the Internet on-line, or are connected by modem or digital ISDN. The quality of the transferred microscopic images and response time (ca 2 seconds) was sufficient for practical use, no complicated installation processes are necessary and the system is easy to use. The system design makes every pathologist, who is at the same time the Internet user, to be a possible discussion partner. We think that this will help to overcome one essential obstacle to practice teleconsultations in pathology.