The introduction of virtual microscopy is transforming some clinical activities such as diagnostics in pathological anatomy. CRS4 has been active in this field for a long time, in particular with the creation of its Digital Pathology platform, which allows users to manage, examine and annotate virtual histological specimens in a fully digitized process.
A new scientific study has demonstrated that CRS4's Digital Pathology platform is interchangeable with traditional light microscopy systems typically used in hospital settings for the evaluation of prostate cancer slides. The study was recently published in Nature Scientific Reports in the article entitled "Interchangeability of light and virtual microscopy forhistopathological evaluation of prostate cancer", co-authored by Luca Lianas and Cecilia Mascia from CRS4’s Visual and Data-intensive Computing department. This work is the most recent result emerging from the collaboration between CRS4 and a group of clinical specialists from Sweden (Karolinska Institutet and Örebro University Hospital, Department of Urology) and Italy (Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino, Centro di Riferimento per l'Epidemiologia e la Prevenzione Oncologica in Piemonte and Ospedale Sant’Orsola-Malpighi di Bologna).
In particular, CRS4 and KI have been collaborating since 2016 on the development of advanced methodologies and innovative tools for the analysis of very high resolution digital pathology images and for the management of clinical data and annotations associated with them. As part of this partnership, CRS4 has extended its Digital Pathology platform – which allows the visualization, management and annotation of digital slide images – specializing it for the clinical domain of prostate cancer and enabling the collection of one of the richest annotated datasets in Europe on this type of pathology. CRS4 and Karolinska Institutet are currently engaged in the EU H2020 DeepHealth Project, which aims to advance the state of application of Artificial Intelligence techniques in the clinical domain.