A group of French hospitals are adopting digital pathology through Sectra, with the Swedish firm saying France is notable for acceptance.
Sectra said that its digital pathology product will be used by the hospital CH Béziers, the third hospital in the region to subscribe. The hospitals will complement their use of microscopes with a digital solution, allowing the pathologists to minimize variability in pathology reviews and enhance collaboration around complex cases especially, according to Sectra.
The announcement from France follows a similar one in Belgium involving academic hospital UZ Leuven moving to enterprise imaging with a focus on the digital pathology module, according to Sectra. The pathology solution is part of the company's enterprise imaging platform.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Tousseyn, a hematopathologist at UZ Leuven, said pathologists at UZ Leuven have been using digital pathology in a limited capacity for multiple years and, with enterprise imaging, will take the step to go fully digital for primary diagnostics.
Now accommodating radiology, pathology, and genomics, Sectra said during its September 6 earnings call that bringing hospitals live will be gradual. Sectra CEO Torbjörn Kronander added that pathologists are still taking a conservative approach to digital pathology adoption in the U.S.
"You can't expect a complete new area to grow very fast," Kronander said. "But we see increasing deployment in the U.S. Hospitals like University of Pennsylvania are showing that it actually works."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) April clearance to allow use of digital imaging and communication in medicine (DICOM) images for pathology diagnostics marks a significant step toward standardization in the field, Sectra also noted on the call. The decision marks a potential end to limitations caused by proprietary image and file formats.
"This is an important first step to a reality where healthcare providers can start reaping the benefits of a larger degree of freedom in choosing what hardware and software to combine, within pathology," Kronander said in April.
Expressing optimism about removing barriers, Leica Biosystems earlier this month announced nonenforcement of its DICOM patent portfolio to accelerate usage of DICOM and standardization in digital pathology.
Sectra and Leica in April received that FDA clearance to use Sectra's 3.3 digital pathology module with the Aperio GT 450 DX scanner and Dell U3223QE display, for viewing and management of the ScanScope Virtual Slide (SVS) and DICOM format. Aperio and Sectra's digital pathology models have otherwise been aligned on the regulatory side of FDA approvals.
Meanwhile, Ibex Medical Analytics (Ibex) also reported from France that a cancer center in France, Institut Curie, has introduced Ibex’s artificial intelligence (AI) solution into routine clinical practice, also via Sectra. The company said pathologists there are using AI to diagnose prostate cancer, with plans expand to a series of other Ibex applications in the coming months.
Prof. Anne Vincent-Salomon, head of the pathology department at Institut Curie, and professor at the University Paris-Sciences et Lettres, said the effort brings together the pathology team, IT department, a data protection officer, and information systems security managers.
In the November 21 announcement, Ibex noted that its solutions are for research use only in the U.S., while multiple solutions are CE-marked and registered with the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
