Digital & Computational Pathology - Fellow and Group Leader, Cancer Research UK Scotland Centre

A fellow and group leader at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Centre discusses the current use of digital pathology in their institution, including pathology review, curating cohorts, and retrieving archival specimens. They use digital slides for confirming diagnoses and marking regions of interest for molecular analysis. Digital pathology is primarily used for research purposes, but they expect it to be implemented in clinical settings in the future. The advantages of objective assessment and collaboration with experts through image sharing are highlighted. The stakeholder estimates their annual budget for digital pathology to be £2,500, with a potential increase in the future. They also discuss the potential future spend on image management software and more sophisticated image analysis software. They anticipate increased spending on infrastructure to support artificial intelligence and computational processing power and storage. The number of slides used in digital pathology is estimated to be around 3,000 per year, with potential for an increase due to expanding translational studies. The stakeholder discusses barriers to adoption, including the slow nature of the NHS and generational differences in pathologists' attitudes towards digitization. Reimbursement for digital pathology and technological trends, such as scanners and multiplexing, are also mentioned. The stakeholder suggests considering equipment maintenance costs and the availability of open-access resources in the digital pathology landscape.