Expected Benefits
Pathology is central to ensuring accurate diagnosis for patients with diseases such as cancer. However, due to our ageing population there are rapidly rising sample numbers and increasing case complexity. This is placing increasing pressures on the pathology laboratories to turnaround samples in a meaningful time-frame. The introduction of digital scanning technology will enable pathology slides to be outsourced for expert opinion and rapid diagnosis.

This will significantly speed up the time in which cancer is diagnosed and treated, but will also enable access specialist diagnostic services in a time-frame that is not currently feasible. This will allow more timely and personalised treatment leading to improved outcomes.

Why is this piece of equipment considered to be innovative/state-of-the-art?
Digital scanning technology has been available for some years but recently the quality has improved so significantly that it looks likely to replace the microscope for viewing of slides in the near future. This also means that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) to provide reporting algorithms will not be far
behind. There is currently a nationwide project to capture these images being led by the University of Warwick for the purposes of developing these algorithms. It may be possible to link into this project to access the diagnostic expertise of pathologists nationwide, putting HHFT at the forefront of the pathology community in providing a model for how this can be done from a district general hospital.