Telepathology - An Update

Telepathology is a practice of pathology over a long distance. It has been first demonstrated in space by NASA (National Air and Space Administration) since 1960s. After few decades of development, the growth of telepathology is accelerating. Today, its technical development has matured, and it is used in multiple fields such as in clinical practice, intraoperative consultation and medical education. These functions can be performed with the use of all three types of telepathology system (static telepathology, dynamic telepathology and hybrid telepathology). Telepathology brings advantages in terms of personnel, operational and quality of service. This brings it to be the solution for problems arise in the today’s medical field. However, its disadvantages and challenges have restricted it from being widely used. The main problems are the high cost fee of the software, set-up components and maintenance, high complexity of the system, security issues and inconvenient in slide selection. Therefore, to integrate telepathology into the mainstream diagnostic, immediate finding of solutions are urgently needed.