Ultrastructural Telepathology: Remote EM Diagnostic via Internet

Schroeder, Josef A.

The digital revolution has given rise to new tools in different disciplines of science; much of this new knowledge has been assimilated into different telemedicine applications and also extends the boundaries of pathology, a diagnostic medical discipline. The tissue-based pathologic diagnosis is the gold standard for all subsequent medical procedures - especially surgery and tumour treatment - and electron microscopy, owing to its high-resolution, can provide significant data not discernible by light microscopy to render the correct diagnosis. In case of diagnostic difficulty remote experts can instantly examine pathologic samples directly using an ultrastructural telepathology system: the consulting “second opinion” expert is no longer constrained by problems inherent in preselected images. Growing Internet bandwidth and developing Grid technology foster such interactive telemicroscopy solutions enabling savings of time and resources in healthcare, research and distance teaching.