Validation of Digital Microscopy Compared With Light Microscopy for the Diagnosis of Canine Cutaneous Tumors.

Bertram, Christof A; Gurtner, Corinne; Dettwiler, Martina Andrea; Kershaw, Olivia; Dietert, Kristina; Pieper, Laura; Pischon, Hannah; Gruber, Achim D; Klopfleisch, Robert (2018). Validation of Digital Microscopy Compared With Light Microscopy for the Diagnosis of Canine Cutaneous Tumors. Veterinary pathology, 55(4), pp. 490-500. Sage 10.1177/0300985818755254

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Integration of new technologies, such as digital microscopy, into a highly standardized laboratory routine requires the validation of its performance in terms of reliability, specificity, and sensitivity. However, a validation study of digital microscopy is currently lacking in veterinary pathology. The aim of the current study was to validate the usability of digital microscopy in terms of diagnostic accuracy, speed, and confidence for diagnosing and differentiating common canine cutaneous tumor types and to compare it to classical light microscopy. Therefore, 80 histologic sections including 17 different skin tumor types were examined twice as glass slides and twice as digital whole-slide images by 6 pathologists with different levels of experience at 4 time points. Comparison of both methods found digital microscopy to be noninferior for differentiating individual tumor types within the category epithelial and mesenchymal tumors, but diagnostic concordance was slightly lower for differentiating individual round cell tumor types by digital microscopy. In addition, digital microscopy was associated with significantly shorter diagnostic time, but diagnostic confidence was lower and technical quality was considered inferior for whole-slide images compared with glass slides. Of note, diagnostic performance for whole-slide images scanned at 200× magnification was noninferior in diagnostic performance for slides scanned at 400×. In conclusion, digital microscopy differs only minimally from light microscopy in few aspects of diagnostic performance and overall appears adequate for the diagnosis of individual canine cutaneous tumors with minor limitations for differentiating individual round cell tumor types and grading of mast cell tumors.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	05 Veterinary Medicine > Research Foci > DermFocus 05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute of Animal Pathology 05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP)
UniBE Contributor:	Gurtner, Corinne, Dettwiler, Martina Andrea
Subjects:	500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology 500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology) 600 Technology > 630 Agriculture
ISSN:	1544-2217
Publisher:	Sage
Language:	English
Submitter:	Pamela Schumacher
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2019 12:31
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 15:27
Publisher DOI:	10.1177/0300985818755254
PubMed ID:	29402206
Uncontrolled Keywords:	diagnostic concordance digital pathology laboratory proficiency testing scanning magnification technical quality validation study virtual microscopy whole-slide images
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/127558