“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their...

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

Eleanor Roosevelt

My friends,

Pathology is facing growing demand, increasing sub-specialisation, and increasing demand for speed and quality. This is driving demand for accurate timely expert pathology services which simply cannot be provided in all the places that they are needed. This is a growing problem in the developed world but so far insoluble in the developing world. As with other areas of medicine, brought into sharp focus by the Covid epidemic, Telemedicine has pointed the way for pathology. Anatomical pathology, or histopathology, is first and foremost a visual art. Digitalisation of images prepared pathology specimens and instant reviews by experts located anywhere in the world is now possible. But this still requires all the pathology infrastructure at the clinic and the operating theatre. Carl Zeiss is showing another way. It is showing a way to leapfrog the lack of local pathological infrastructure and expertise. It is developing of a digital histopathology hub for instant review, assistance and comment by world expert neuropathologists, located in Germany, available to any neurosurgeon using the Opitscan CONVIVO laser microscope, real time, whilst the patient is in theatre and operation in progress. This is a revolution. This is the future.

The current increasing complexity of anatomical pathology, and the super-specialization requires the development and duplication of massive complex and expensive infrastructure and superspecialist expertise in every major hospital in the developed world. The demand in the developed world is going unmet. As for developing countries, screening and surgical pathology of this form is simply not available and unlikely to be available in the foreseeable future. Screening for such common and increasing cancers such as oral and cervical cancers, in the developing world, cannot be provided using the current pathology model. This is where Telepathology both for the clinic and for the operating theatre provides the solution. Like the mobile phone leapfrogged the lack of communication infrastructure in the developing and developed world, Telepathology can leapfrog the worldwide shortage of expert pathological services. Expert instant real time pathology will be available to surgeons and clinicians, in the operating room and in the clinic, via Telepathology. Telepathology hubs, staffed by experts in their field, available at the point of patient treatment and screening will revolutionise pathology. By following the neuropathology hub model that Carl Zeiss is instituting, Optiscan can emulate this in many other areas, starting in the fields that it has trials underway now, namely oral cancer and breast cancer, with cervical cancer to follow soon. Carl Zeiss has started with the most difficult organ, the brain. Optiscan has been left with a lot of low hanging fruit ready for the picking.