Telepathology

Details of each study are provided in Appendix 1. The majority of studies investigated the diagnostic accuracy or diagnostic concordance of telepathology with the reference diagnoses or conventional methods. [...] Three studies were retrospective comparisons.13-15 and in three studies was it was stated that the pathologist was blinded to the diagnoses.14-16 The diagnostic accuracy of dynamic telepathology was 95.3% for frozen sections of breast lesions12 and 91.6% to 97% (depending on pathologist in the study) for surgical pathology specimens of various origins.16 Diagnostic concordance ranged from 78% with [...] In contrast, another study reported the mean time for telepathology diagnoses was 17.0 minutes and the time to review a slide 3 to 4 times longer than that of standard light microscopy.16 Overall, study conclusions were generally positive with regard to the value and potential use of dynamic telepathology compared to conventional methods; however, caution was expressed regarding the importance of [...] As part of the survey, institutions were asked to estimate values of willingness to pay (WTP) (i.e., the maximum amount customers are willing to pay to access the service) and the willingness to undertake (WTU) (i.e., the minimum charge to undertake the service). [...] As the study was based on an existing EQA scheme, the allocation of participating pathologists to groups of cases was not formally randomized for the study, but rather was done by alternating the allocation of pathologists to each group as they joined the scheme.