Purpose: The purpose of this work is to present a platform for designing and executing studies that compare pathologists interpreting histopathology of whole slide images (WSI) on a computer display to pathologists interpreting glass slides on an optical microscope.
Methods: Here we present eeDAP, an evaluation environment for digital and analog pathology. The key element in eeDAP is the registration of the WSI to the glass slide. Registration is accomplished through computer control of the microscope stage and a camera mounted on the microscope that acquires images of the real time microscope view. Registration allows for the evaluation of the same regions of interest (ROIs) in both domains. This can reduce or eliminate disagreements that arise from pathologists interpreting different areas and focuses the comparison on image quality.
Results: We reduced the pathologist interpretation area from an entire glass slide (≈10-30 mm)2 to small ROIs <(50 um)2. We also made possible the evaluation of individual cells.
Conclusions: We summarize eeDAP's software and hardware and provide calculations and corresponding images of the microscope field of view and the ROIs extracted from the WSIs. These calculations help provide a sense of eeDAP's functionality and operating principles, while the images provide a sense of the look and feel of studies that can be conducted in the digital and analog domains. The eeDAP software can be downloaded from code.google.com (project: eeDAP) as Matlab source or as a precompiled stand-alone license-free application.
Keywords: Digital Pathology; Reader Studies; Technology Evaluation; Whole Slide Imaging.