On 23 Jun 2020, Roche Diagnostics Asia Pacific hosted a webinar on recent trends in digital pathology adoption and usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar featured five leading pathology experts from across the region:

• Dr Pairoj Junyangdikul – Deputy Managing Director of N-Health Pathology Thailand Laboratory
• Dr Myat Wai Hsu – Consultant Pathologist, N Health Myanmar Laboratory
• Dr Sangeeta Desai – Professor and Head, Department of Pathology, Tata Memorial Centre, India
• Dr Chris Douglas – Medical Director, Histopath Diagnostic Specialists, Australia
• Dr Richie Jara- Lazaro (moderator) – Pathologist, Medical and Scientific Affairs, Roche Diagnostics Asia Pacific, Singapore

The webinar began with a presentation on Dr Junyangdikul’s experience at N Health, the largest private lab services provider in Thailand. He said that many of N Health’s sites are already equipped with digital pathology systems, including a new lab in Yangon, Myanmar, where digital pathology provided substantial improvements in turnaround time and logistics costs (see How Thailand’s largest lab operator drives continuous value creation for more details on N Health’s innovative approach to lab management).

Dr Desai followed with an insightful discussion of how the COVID-19 pandemic changed histopathology workflows at Tata Memorial Centure, one of the largest specialist cancer centres in India. Prior to the pandemic, she had been using digital pathology primarily for education, multi-disciplinary tumour board meetings and quality assurance. On account of the lockdowns, however, her team accelerated efforts to enable remote sign-on and use digital pathology for primary diagnosis, allowing them to continue serving patients while observing safe distancing requirements.

Dr Douglas, who leads a private lab group in Australia, observed that digital pathology was already being used as part of multidisciplinary tumour board meetings in the country, but that COVID-19 made it even more desirable to move these discussions online. He also argued that the advent of digital pathology provides new opportunities to apply artificial intelligence to slide images, though he noted that these efforts are still in their early stages.

The webinar also included a short presentation from Dr Jara-Lazaro, who shared results from a recent survey by Roche Diagnostics Asia Pacific on digital pathology trends in the region. Conducted from May to June 2020, the survey indicated that 40% of pathologists and histo-technicians in the region felt unprepared for the COVID-19 outbreak, and that 66% were considering adopting digital pathology to ensure continuity of care for their patients.

For more details, watch the full webinar below: