Empowering laboratories to harness the potential offered by digitalisation

The histopathologist has a pivotal role to play in the drive towards delivering personalised, targeted therapies, especially for cancer patients. However, increased efficiency and more precise diagnostics are crucial to achieving what is being demanded. The discipline needs to become increasingly quantitative − and digitalisation may have the answer. In fact, the implementation of a digital pathology workflow has the potential to transform the contribution of histopathologists, with long-term benefits for patients and their clinicians far outweighing the implementation cost.

            The challenge in oncology is either to ‘cure’ or transform a cancer into a chronic condition by personalised therapy. A 2014 report predicted that, by 2025, targeted therapy would account for 70–80% of cancer treatments.¹ Instead of a single drug for a specific cancer, often with variable responses, new treatments are making it possible for oncologists to characterise patients more effectively. They do this with biomarkers to predict response to new drugs and help to identify which patients would benefit most from a specific drug or formulation.

            Greater accuracy and faster referral should have a major impact on patient outcomes – and histopathology is central to this process. Immediately after traditional imaging, it provides the correct insights into the type, stage and severity of cancer, which in turn informs the direction of treatment.