[Approach for the improvement of microscopic urinary sediment examination among the hospitals in using multifocal...

Microscopic examination is usually used for analysis of urinary sediment. The problem of it is difference of the examination results among hospital's clinical laboratories. Photo-survey, training conference using photographs and seminars are held for each examiner to obtain accurate results. However, diagnosis of urinary sediment with photographs is difficult because detailed 3-dimensional cell morphology of urinary sediment cannot be analyzed only with photographs. It is also difficult to have opportunity for all examiners to get enough times of real microscopic training. To evaluate the availability of multi-focal virtual software, diagnosis of urinary sediment under 17 hospital's laboratories was compared between multifocal virtual software survey and conventional photo-survey. Questionnaires were also filled out by the examiners. The rate of correct answers to virtual software survey was 73.9% that was almost same as the result of the survey by Saitama Sightron Society. The rate of correct answers by virtual software survey was higher than photo survey. As a result of questionnaires, the participants take certain advantages of virtual software in spite of several problems. In conclusion, multifocal virtual software enables an accurate diagnosis of urinary sediment in 3-dimension, which leads to reduce the discrepancies of examination results among laboratories.