Conference Focused on Digital Pathology

The DPA recently hosted the fifth annual Pathology Visions conference in San Diego, CA, which brought together physicians and pathologists focused on clinical and drug discovery applications. The attendees educated each other about the state of the art and best practices. Soenksen reported that the event went very well, and attendance was up over the previous year, unusual in today's environment. "The feedback was tremendous; we only heard positive comments about the newly formed Digital Pathology Association. There is recognition the digital pathology market is poised to take off. Companies in the market have grown rapidly, but generally everyone is still in the early stages. Some of the barriers are so clearly identified now that there is broad recognition that by pooling resources we are more likely to overcome those barriers than in individual companies trying to overcome the barriers by themselves."


One such barrier is setting standards. Establishing standards for the industry is a common goal for companies that are otherwise competitors. The DPA can also work on establishing regulatory guidelines and perspectives. "Some digital pathology products are FDA cleared for some applications but not others, so another common goal is working with the FDA to establish how clinical studies should be conducted to allow this technology to be marketed more broadly for clinical use. In addition, reimbursement strategies are better undertaken by an industry group. Everyone benefits if potential users are educated. Promoting digital pathology as a capability brings value to the industry and the end-user."

Future plans for the DPA are to add to the current board of directors, to nominate and elect three pathology leaders to the board so the DPA will have a balanced view from the industry and the end-user community. One of the certain plans is to hold a more comprehensive Pathology Visions conference in 2010. Soenksen summarizes the organization's plans: "We'd like to have increase participation by clinicians and perhaps get the FDA involved as well. We also believe that an IT (information technology) and an informatics track would be well received by Visions attendees."

DPA also hopes to offer continuing medical education (CME) credits for physicians attending Visions 2010. It plans to promote digital pathology at different conferences such as ASCO (clinical oncology), HIMSS (image management) or AACR (cancer research; conferences where attendees will benefit by learning about digital pathology. This month, the FDA is assembling a panel of experts to hear from many of the stakeholders in the industry, presumably so they can provide guidance about how companies can get their products approved or cleared for making diagnoses on a computer monitor. The DPA will be presenting to the FDA panel on digital pathology technology and the state of adoption.

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