Digital Pathology Systems Gear Up for Prime Time

GE Healthcare and the University of Pittsburghdifferent solutions for information management in
Medical Center (UPMC) recently announced theya variety of laboratory areas, including anatomic
were beginning a joint venture in digital pathology.pathology. Their AP solution is called the
Together, they formed Omnyx, LLC, which wouldWindoPath Anatomic Pathology Information
build and market a system for digital pathology.System, which has a modular, customizable design
To date, digital pathology is a market that's onlyand can be integrated into several different
been nibbled at the edges, and is primarily thelaboratory information systems.
domain of microscope companies such as Zeiss,MIMvista Corporation
Nikon, and Olympus. However, a small number ofBased in Cleveland, Ohio, MIMvista recently made
companies, bolstered by advances in digitalthe news--somewhat contrary to Psyche's
image-gathering, are entering what is predicted tocomments about PocketPath--because of their
become a $2 to $4 billion industry.development of a pathology imaging system
Digital Pathologyspecifically for Apple's iPhone. MIM stands for
Simply put, digital pathology is the utilization ofMulti-modality Imaging, which has its roots in a
digital photography to capture images ondigital radiology system dubbed Fusion.
microscope slides. In the past (the early 1990s),Omnyx
there were a number of technical problems withAs mentioned earlier, in June 2008, GE Healthcare
digital imaging of anatomic pathology samples.and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Digital cameras captured the microscope slideentered into a joint agreement to start a digital
images and stored them. However, the resolutionpathology device company called Omnyx. Omnyx
of the digital photographs was not competitivewill be headquartered in Pittsburgh and also have a
with microscope optics and storage space wassite in Piscataway, NJ, in addition to facilities in
limited. A massive amount of data storage wasIsrael and in Albany, New York. As yet, Omnyx
required if the images of an entire microscopedoes not have an actual product, although they
slide were to be archived. In addition, the task ofplan to have a prototype device developed by
capturing the entire microscope slide contentsthe end of 2008 and expect to launch a product
was time-consuming and laborious.in 2010. Gene Cartwright, CEO of Omnyx says,
Dick Soenksen, CEO of digital pathology company"We believe it will be a little less than two years
Aperio Technologies, Inc., believes there are fourbefore we have a product. I think that we'll be
requirements for effective digital pathologyable to describe it in high level detail by the end of
systems. They are:this year, but it's the sort of product that needs
1. Scanning ability.FDA approval and that adds a certain amount of
2. Software to manage digital slides. In digitaltime to it."
radiology they are called PACS (picture archivingCartwright believes the reason the field of digital
and communication systems).pathology is receiving so much interest at the
3. Information management systems.moment is that some of the technical hurdles are
4. The ability to perform image analysis on theclose to being solved. "The main ones are speed
digital slides.of acquisition of an image, quality of the image,
Aperio Technologies, Inc.ability to navigate around the image without
If there is a leader in digital pathologyhaving to wait for the image to come up, and
systems--and it's not clear that there isthen the ability to stream images. The cost of
one--Aperio is probably it. Their headquarters is instorage has dropped by 30 to 40 percent a
Vista, California, with a European office in Bristol,year."
U.K. Dick Soenksen, CEO of Aperio, says, "We areEducational Use
focused on digital pathology. That's the only thingJohn Woosley, MD, PhD, Professor of Pathology
we do and it's the only thing we've ever done.at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
From our perspective, digital pathology isnotes an increased use of digital slides in medical
managing the information that's generated byeducation. He sees it as an opportunity for
being able to digitize entire slides."medical schools to cooperate and share teaching
One of the more interesting components ofmaterials, primarily because once a slide has been
Aperio is their Digital Slide Scanning Service.scanned, it costs nothing to duplicate
Rather than invest in a system, the pathologistConclusion
can ship their slides to Aperio and the companyAs noted, pathology is one of the last areas of
will use the ScanScope Scanner to digitize theclinical medicine to become digitized, following
slides, which are then returned along with a CD orradiology and cardiac imaging. Typically the domain
DVD or via Internet access. Although the digitalof microscope companies like Nikon, Zeiss and
pathology market's goal is undoubtedly to have allOlympus, a number of small companies have
pathologists, labs, and hospitals using theirentered the market with new optics technology
technology in-house, this is a potential way to getand digital information management software.
pathologists to digitize early.Although a number of companies and researchers
BioImagenehave approached digital pathology over the last
Cupertino, California-based BioImagene focuses onten to fifteen years, they were hampered largely
imaging systems for life sciences and digitalby the difficulty of acquiring high-resolution images
pathology solutions. Mohan Uttarwar, President andof the entire microscope at high enough quality to
CEO of BioImagene, says that their corebe clinically useful. As digital image capture
competencies are, "The digitization of microscopetechnology improved along with increased digital
slides, bringing in high-resolution imagestorage capacity at lower prices, digital pathology
management, searching, mining of imaging data,may have reached a tipping point where the
and image analysis. Finally, the power of thetechnology is available at a reasonable cost.
Internet can be used to manage information,It's not clear how large that market may actually
whether it's a clinical report, educational content,be. Omnyx's Cartwright says, "The assumption is
peer reviews--formal or informal--or secondthe market will adopt digital pathology at the
opinions. All these pieces put together aresame rate that digital radiology was adopted. So in
something we as a company have focused on."several years we believe--and at the price points
Uttarwar cites four issues that are slowingwe're assuming the market will support--that the
adoption.market will be worth about $2 billion."
1. Lack of standardization.Aperio's Soenksen is more optimistic. "We've
2. Psychology, or resistance on the part oflooked at the market and we've made a
pathologists.hypothetical full-adoption in the market and say it's
3. Ease of use and high quality.close to $4 billion a year. That's about twice the
4. Pricepoint.size of what GE had in their analysis. We see
Psyche Systems Corporationmore value in digital diagnosis that could be applied
Psyche Systems (Milford, MA) is not a digitalto automate things that pathologists are currently
pathology company per se, but a laboratoryspending time on.
information system. They offer a number of