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Published on: March 21, 2018
Telepathological evaluation of paediatric histological specimens in support of a hospital in Tanzania
Hans-Ullrich Voelker1, Laura Poetzl1, Annette Strehl1
1Pathology, Leopoldina Hospital, Gustav-Adolf-Str 8, D-97422 Schweinfurt.
Background/Objective:
In a project of telepathology (TP) between German pathologists and a hospital in Tanzania, trained technical assistants have uploaded digital histological images onto the internet-based platform ipath. The diagnoses from 486 paediatric specimens were analysed.
Methods:
The investigation included diagnoses, either primarily done via TP or secondarily after a further workup of the paraffin-embedded tissue, which was sent to Germany for cases which could not be solved via TP. In the latter, the initial TP-diagnoses were compared with the results after re-evaluation.
Results:
The median age was 11 years. The cohort comprised 390 benign diseases (80.2%) and 96 malignant diseases (19.8%). For benign diseases, the most frequent anatomic sites were lymph nodes, skin, and soft tissue, breast, and head&-neck. Frequent diagnoses were non-specific inflammations and benign tumors. In malignant diseases, the most sites were lymph nodes, skin, soft tissue, head&neck, and ovary and the most frequent diseases sarcomas and lymphomas. The paraffin embedded tissue of 179 cases (36.3%) was shipped to Germany. With the concordance analysis, we could discover the mandatory necessity for the possibility of second opinion in difficult cases.
Conclusion:
An exclusively TP-support cannot meet all requirements of modern medical diagnostics. The education of local pathologists is imperative.
