“Fortune befriends the bold.” Emily DickensonMy friends,Today...

“Fortune befriends the bold.”

Emily Dickenson

My friends,

Today Tiresias would like to address the big picture. Where does Optiscan’s Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy (CLE) stand right now, and why. It is true that Tiresias has waxed lyrical on the revolutionary nature and potential of Optiscan’s in vivo real-time 3D CLE. He has repeatedly said that we are at the cusp of a digital revolution in pathology (microimaging) akin to the digital revolution that has taken place in radiology and medical macro-imaging. We are just at the beginning, just at the cusp, still. A disruptive revolution in a fundamental field of medicine. Tiresias has been saying this for a while, and a lot longer that he has been writing to his friends about it. Some of his friends might well be say; “Let Optiscan put up. Show us.”. Tiresias has but expressed his disappointments with some managements of the past. The lack of follow-through of Pentax in the Gastrointestinal Endomicroscopy has been most egregious. It was not entirely due to Optiscan's management, but they certainly dropped the ball afterwards in this field which Tiresias is certain can and will be revived and will be one of the major entrees of digital in vivo real-time pathology. Tiresias does recognise this was a time of great panic following the GFC and Optiscan's management of the time was unprepared and short of funds, but nevertheless it has been 10 years since and we have not heard very much about gastrointestinal endomicroscopy, low-hanging fruit, all ready for the picking. Tiresias hopes to hear more on this subject and soon.

There are so many opportunities right now, right this very minute for Optiscan if only they can embrace what is undoubtedly the future. And the future is health. The future is medicine. The future is technology of health and medicine. Health in the only field that interests everyone. To paraphrase a famous US presidential election slogan; “It is health stupid”. And furthermore, it is the cancer. We all live hostage to health and cancer. When everything else is solved, it is health and only health that concerns us. All else is nothing without it and all else is traded for it. This is what it comes down to, and we, my friends, who are Optiscan, are in the only field that really matters, and in that field, digitalisation of pathology. But Tiresias’s friends might well say that Optiscan has been at the cusp for quite a while. Yes indeed, that is true. However, the time is now ripe. The stars are truly aligning. In-Vivo real-time gastro-endoscopic histopathology screening has been fully developed and it is only a matter of stepping back into the field. Skin cancer surgery is just waiting. Malignant brain tumour surgery is advancing, albeit at Zeiss’s methodical pace. Breast cancer oral and head and neck cancer is developing rapidly. Digitalisation and centralisation of histopathology is here. Optiscan leads the field. Tiresias has seen the competitor’s images, and Tiresias can reassure his friends that it is no contest. Optiscan is far superior and Optiscan can go a lot, lot further. The time is ripe for us my friends.