MARKING a significant step in digital pathology and cancer diagnostics, Makati Medical Center (MMC) launched the first digital pathology scanner in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.Inaugurated last Wednesday, the Aperio GT 180DX scanner marks a milestone in pathology by enabling the digitization of tissue samples for more efficient diagnosis and collaboration in the medical field.“
Cancer incidences are rising around the world, including in the Philippines. And unfortunately, the number of pathologists every year is getting smaller, and fewer doctors are going into this field. So it’s sort of a perfect storm of increasing cases and fewer pathologists to diagnose it. So the Aperio GT 180 DX scanner can allow pathologists to be much more efficient,” says Bob Blalock, Vice President and General Manager for APAC of Leica Biosystems.According to Dr. Redante Mendoza, Chairman of the Department of Pathology and Laboratories, the scanner will help even faster turnaround time by allowing medical experts to access the samples anywhere.“Makati Medical Center is a referral hospital and a specialized hospital. We do get very difficult cases. 
So our case loads are sometimes surprisingly difficult, and we need experts. We have most of them in our team, but they are not here all the time because they also go to other hospitals. So we can give them access and they can look at it in real time on the same day rather than wait for their schedule to come in a few days later,” Mendoza said.Mendoza also said that technology will help relieve cancer patients and their families the anxiety in waiting for results and can help them swiftly begin their treatment.Transforming pathology research and cancer care The introduction of the digital scanner will also help develop cancer research in the Philippines.“We don’t have much data on Philippine cancers, most come from abroad, so we can do that,” Mendoza said. Mendoza also assured that the introduction of AI with the digitization process will assist pathologists to read the samples in the future and not replace them.Medical Oncologist Dr. Regina T. Edusma-Dy, says the process will help in providing multidisciplinary treatment and care for patients.“So in the future, with the radiology, the pathology slides, and then the images of the tumor, can all be seen on a monitor then we can all discuss it, not like now, when we have to feed on our own, those images, and then the discussion will take off. Then this can be also shown and explained to the patient. The impact to the patient, seeing their team, discussing their cases, and then presenting it to them, makes their journey really meaningful,” Edusma-Dy said.

Original source: ph