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Resumen Introduccion Las recomendaciones del cribado de cancer de cervix en Espana incluyen la participacion en programas de control de calidad externos a los laboratorios de citologia. La Sociedad Espanola de Citologia ha iniciado un programa de control de calidad de la citologia ginecologica. Objetivo Presentar y discutir los resultados de la primera ronda del control de calidad de la Sociedad Espanola de Citologia. Material y metodo Organizacion de los hospitales participantes segun el tipo de citologia. Intercambio de preparaciones de 50 casos entre los participantes: 10 negativos, 20 ASCUS-ASCH, 10 LSIL y 10 HSIL. Estudio de la correlacion diagnostica interobservador. Resultados Trece hospitales participantes: 6 en ThinPrep, 5 en triple toma y 2 en SurePath. La concordancia global media fue del 69,7%. La concordancia media por tipo de lesion fue del 41,7%. La concordancia en negativos fue del 78,1%, en ASCUS del 41,3%, en LSIL de 58,9% y en HSIL del 64,2%. Los casos discordantes se diagnosticaban con mayor frecuencia como negativos, ASCUS y LSIL. Las discordancias severas (HSIL/ASCH versus negativo), alcanzaron un 3,8% de casos. Conclusiones Nuestros resultados son similares a los descritos en la literatura con muy escasas discordancias severas. El metodo de intercambio de laminillas utilizado no permite una formacion continuada posterior, ya que no incluye la revision de los casos con discordancias diagnosticas. Por ello, se contemplan correcciones metodologicas en sucesivas rondas.

Advances in digital pathology are generating huge volumes of whole slide (WSI) and tissue microarray images (TMA) which are providing new insights into the causes of cancer. The challenge is to extract and process effectively all the information in order to characterize all the heterogeneous tissue-derived data. This study aims to identify an optimal set of features that best separates different classes in breast TMA. These classes are: stroma, adipose tissue, benign and benign anomalous structures and ductal and lobular carcinomas. To this end, we propose an exhaustive assessment on the utility of textons and colour for automatic classification of breast TMA. Frequential and spatial texton maps from eight different colour models were extracted and compared. Then, in a novel way, the TMA is characterized by the 1st and 2nd order Haralick statistical descriptors obtained from the texton maps with a total of 241 × 8 features for each original RGB image. Subsequently, a feature selection process is performed to remove redundant information and therefore to reduce the dimensionality of the feature vector. Three methods were evaluated: linear discriminant analysis, correlation and sequential forward search. Finally, an extended bank of classifiers composed of six techniques was compared, but only three of them could significantly improve accuracy rates: Fisher, Bagging Trees and AdaBoost. Our results reveal that the combination of different colour models applied to spatial texton maps provides the most efficient representation of the breast TMA. Specifically, we found that the best colour model combination is Hb, Luv and SCT for all classifiers and the classifier that performs best for all colour model combinations is the AdaBoost. On a database comprising 628 TMA images, classification yields an accuracy of 98.1% and a precision of 96.2% with a total of 316 features on spatial textons maps.

Background Cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy is the best operative treatment currently available for patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis of ovarian origin. The open abdomen technique is the classic technique for hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. We developed a closed abdomen model that improves temperature control and increases exposure of peritoneal surfaces to the drug by recirculating the perfusate. Methods We used a porcine model with 12 female, Large White pigs—4 in the open technique group and 8 in the closed technique CO2 group. We performed cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy for 60 minutes using paclitaxel (175 mg/m2) at an input temperature of 42°C. Perfusate recirculation was performed under controlled pressure (range, 12–15 mmHg). The infusion of 0.7 L of CO2 via a separate intraperitoneal infusion catheter mixed the perfusate within the peritoneal cavity. Intra-abdominal temperature was assessed using 6 intra-abdominal temperature probes and 2 temperature probes in the inflow and outflow circuits. Drug distribution was assessed using methylene blue staining. Results Intra-abdominal temperatures remained constant and homogeneous in all intra-abdominal quadrants with a constant input temperature of 42°C and a minimum output temperature of 41.4°C. The infused CO2 caused the fluid to bubble and created agitation inside the abdominal cavity to facilitate a homogeneous distribution of the drug-containing perfusate. Conclusion The closed recirculation hyperthermia with intraperitoneal chemotherapy technique developed in this study is safe and feasible, and may provide a more homogeneous delivery of heated chemotherapy to the peritoneal cavity in patients with peritoneal malignancies.

In this work we present a study for assessing and comparing the fidelity of biopsy and cytology images captured with two different devices, that is optical microscopes and scanners, at 40× magnification in bright field. The devices use different ways to magnify images. Microscopes use a set of lenses while scanners capture light through arrays of micro-photoreceptors. The objective is to carry out a quantitative evaluation to discern which of the two devices provides better image quality in terms of contrast, colour and stain. Since there is no unanimous consensus on quality metrics, we will make use of both an objective metric based on perceptual features, together with a subjective psychophysical test as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recommends in ITU-R BT.500 for such type of tests. Both techniques indicate a slight preference for the scanner over the microscope in terms of better image quality, considering defocus as the main problem followed by colour distortions. However, the image quality of both devices is suitable for clinical, educational and research purposes. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd., This work has been carried out with the support of COST ActionIC0604, and the research projects DPI2008-06071, TEC2010-20307, TEC2010-09834-E of the Spanish Research Ministry, PI-2010/040 of the FISCAM and PAI08-0283-9663 of JCCM.

Resumen La implantacion de los equipos de microscopia virtual ha estado condicionada por factores como su elevado coste o la falta de estandares de software entre los diferentes fabricantes. Hemos analizado cinco diferentes programas de imagenes panoramicas aplicables a microscopia virtual: Zoomify, HDView, Gigapan, Silverlight Deep Zoom y Google Earth, con el objetivo de encontrar alternativas de facil implantacion para compatibilizar diferentes equipos, y evitar costes adicionales en software especifico. Todos los programas, con pequenas diferencias, han demostrado su potencial adaptacion a imagenes microscopicas, y la sencillez en su empleo a traves de enlaces web accesibles desde cualquier conexion a internet. Ninguno de los programas ha requerido conocimientos de programacion informatica, y son manejables directamente por patologos sin necesidad de asistencia tecnica. Si es recomendable un cierto conocimiento acerca de imagenes digitales, de manejo de servidores web y de diseno de paginas web para poder obtener el maximo rendimiento en su aplicacion a la microscopia virtual.

Digital pathology is an interdisciplinary field where competency in pathology, laboratory techniques, informatics, computer science, information systems, engineering, and even biology converge. This implies that teaching students about digital pathology requires coverage, expertise, and hands-on experience in all these disciplines. With this in mind, a syllabus was developed for a digital pathology summer school aimed at professionals in the aforementioned fields, as well as trainees and doctoral students. The aim of this communication is to share the context, rationale, and syllabus for this school of digital pathology.