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

A078
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND PUBLICATION : A CHALLENGE FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE IN DIAGNOSTIC PATHOLOGY
Kayser K

Department of Pathology, Thoraxklinik, Heidelberg, Germany

Electronic communication (telepathology) has been established in various institutes of pathology within the last years. Primarily designed for the performance of frozen section services via remote control microscopes, the gathered experiences in expert consultation are promising that telepathology can replace the shipping of glass slides and tissue blocks in many cases. Specific programs which require contemporary point-to-point connections are still in use; however, asynchronous data transfer (for example via the internet) are more convenient, especially when connecting different continents with a time gap of several hours, such as Asia and Europe. The results of telecommunication performed between the Department of Pathology, Thoraxklinik Heidelberg and several partners in Austria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, South Africa have shown that 4 - 6 images acquired at two different magnifications are sufficient for diagnostic support in most of the cases. The use of high resolution digital cameras is of advantage compared to that of conventional CCD cameras due to the increase spatial resolution. The combination of telepathology with electronic publication offers new perspectives in diagnostic pathology. The electronic expert consultation of a specific difficult case can be immediately combined with scientific data such as an extensive reference on published data related to the case under consideration. The case can be offered to pathologists interested in the specific problem within a couple of days. On the other hand, the patient and clinicians can be provided with the reference data of the specific diagnosis. The interactive publication as offered by the Electronic Journal of Pathology and Histology is an additional step to combined electronic diagnostic communication with electronic publication: Once the authors of an accepted article have agreed that their article might by used for a second extended publication by other scientists, additional cases of related diagnostic problems might be added by various groups of pathologists, and consecutively published. The first results given by the Electronic Journal of Pathology and Histology are promising. The combination of electronic communication and publication can be used for quality assurance in diagnostic pathology.
References:
K. Kayser, J. Szymas, RS. Weinstein: Telepathology, Telecommunication, Electronic Education and Publication in Pathology. Springer, Heidelberg, New York, 1999