Fairfield PathSight facilitates improved case conferencing at Edinburgh

Added: (Thu Oct 04 2001)

Pressbox (Press Release) - At the University of Edinburgh Medical School’s Department of Pathology, the PathSight MDT telepathology system is proving its effectiveness as a means of fast-tracking accurate diagnosis at clinical meetings.

PathSight is a range of software and hardware developed by Fairfield Imaging. The company, a division of Medical Solutions plc, is a specialist in scientific software development and provides practical solutions for computer-based visualisations, particularly in medical microscopy.

PathSight MDT captures pathology images, enabling the pathologist to create sessions for presentation and discussion at Multi Disciplinary Team meetings either live or remotely by teleconferencing.

By providing for live, visual and oral communication amongst its users, PathSight MDT is an ideal tool for remote case presentation and conferencing. It contributes to improved patient management by facilitating the professional input of pathologists to the meeting. It also offers the possibility of optimising pathologists’ available time by reducing the need for travel to meetings.

The system is being employed by the University of Edinburgh Medical School Department of Pathology team to assist in diagnosis via remote consultation and multidisciplinary team meeting. PathSight MDT is also used as a training aid by the School. As many as 1800 cases have been reviewed at Edinburgh using PathSight MDT.

The School’s PathSight MDT meetings have discussed and diagnosed gynaecology and skin cancer, liver and kidney transplant pathology, and lung cancer cases.

Edinburgh’s Professor of Pathology, David Harrison contends that PathSight enables pathology to be presented in a “meaningful, accurate and efficient manner”.

Said Professor Harrison:

“Pathology is an imaging discipline that seeks to make the correct diagnosis – it doesn’t matter how good the treatment is if the diagnosis is wrong. Diagnosis needs to be checked, cross-checked, and discussed with the clinicians looking after the patient. That’s the point of working in a multidisciplinary team.

“The quality of the image captured is vitally important and this is where the PathSight system really excels. We capture up to 60 images each week using PathSight – writing the whole meeting to CD which can then be presented later.

“Fairfield Imaging has the best archiving and retrieval system for pathology images around - vital if we in the health service are moving towards totally electronic-based patient records.

He continues:

“Diagnostic quality pathology images can be archived this way thanks to the high quality image resolution available from Fairfield.

“This should do away with the need for the current extent of tissue retention and is actually very exciting, because if you have a patient’s entire medical history archived electronically clinicians can, at any time, access that patients records, including pathology specimens, immediately.”

In an evaluation study with Dr Kathryn McLaren at the Pathology Department at Teviot Place and Dr Jeremy Thomas at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, pathologists used PathSight MDT to remote consult on cases that otherwise would have been physically transferred.

The results of the study concluded that with familiarity, live dynamic sessions at regularly scheduled times were the most efficient use of time for consultations.

“Pre-preparation of images followed by an on-line discussion of the case can be more time effective for the critical on-line period than an unprepared live session, particularly for complex cases involving multiple slides and stains.

“This is an area we are actively exploring,” commented Professor Harrison.

“These sessions can save journey time and enhance mutual learning. Clinicians attending the meetings have been very appreciative of the quality of image that PathSight provides and gain more from meetings as a consequence.

“In addition, the fact that the case sessions are maintained as a digital record has proved useful as a source of reference material both for attendees at teaching courses. PathSight MDT is a useful training medium as it allows more trainees to view cases simultaneously than via a multi-headed microscope.”

The University of Edinburgh team is currently finding telepathology of most value for discussion of difficult cases at scheduled meetings. Professor Harrison envisages developing routine use of telepathology for diagnosis in specialist cases in the very near future.

“The prospects for breast cancer and prostrate cancer biopsies are particularly exciting,” he says.

“However, increased usage is likely to come with greater familiarity of the technology coupled with its integration into standard work practices.

“It is likely to have an increasingly important role as more medical sites are linked up in telemedicine programmes locally and nationally to facilitate both quicker consultation and diagnosis as well as teaching.“

ends

Issued October 2001

Further information from:

PMPR Business Communications Fairfield Imaging Ltd
Peter Muir Tel: 01296 715228 www.fairfield-imaging.co.uk
Jane Martin Tel: 020 8742 2927

Editor Notes:

PathSight in application

PathSight MDT and telepathology systems are in use at UK hospitals in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Nottingham, Liverpool and London. Internationally, the products are installed at sites in Sweden, Norway, Germany, Japan, and the USA.

Fairfield Imaging Ltd

Fairfield Imaging Ltd, a UK-based biomedical company, part of the Medical Solutions group, develops, manufactures and markets digital imaging solutions for pathologists. Its products include the Fairfield DNA Ploidy System and other methods for predicting the prognosis and for the early diagnosis of cancers. Fairfield currently is undertaking clinical studies of its DNA Ploidy System in cervical, ovarian, breast and prostate cancer. Fairfield also provides dynamic telepathology systems to facilitate remote diagnosis, second opinions and clinical communications, and telecolposcopy systems to improve the follow-up of abnormal or borderline cervical screening results.

Medical Solutions plc

Medical Solutions plc, is a healthcare company dedicated to solving identified medical problems. It is a holding company for a number of operating subsidiaries within three divisions: Digital Diagnosis, based upon the use of digital imaging and telemedicine for both diagnosis and medical research; Pharmaceuticals, focusing on infection and contamination control and dermatology: and Medical Products Distribution, in both Europe and USA.