Frozen section service via the telenetwork in northern Norway

We present preliminary results of remote frozen section service for two local hospitals in Northern Norway. The service is arranged by remote controlling microscopes with motorized X, Y and Z stage movements, magnification and illumination located at Kirkenes and Harstad Hospitals at a distance up to 400 km apart from the workstation at the University Hospital in Tromsø. The video-images of the frozen section are transmitted via a two-ways phone and video telenetwork with 2 Mbit/s capacity. The images are displayed on a monitor as both still and live images and diagnosed by pathologists in Tromsø. To data, 50 patients are examined by remote frozen section service. Correct benign versus malignant diagnoses are given in all cases compared with final diagnoses based on formalin fixed and paraffin embedded material except for two false negative malignant cases and two deferred diagnoses. The average time taken for examining each case of frozen section was 13 minutes. For hospitals with limited requirement of local pathology service and for hospitals with deficiency of specialists, remote frozen section service may be a worthwhile substitute.