Digital Pathology Scheme
The concept of the UK NEQAS CPT Digital Pathology EQA Scheme is that participants are required to submit one digital image and the corresponding H&E-stained slide for each asset being utilised within the laboratory for the purposes of digital pathology diagnostics. An asset being a single digital slide scanner. This scheme is available to both public and private organisations for the quality assurance of their digital slide scanning.
In late 2019, UK NEQAS CPT issued a survey, to gauge people’s usage of Digital Slide Scanning or Digital Pathology for reporting by a pathologist from a digital monitor or device. As part of this survey we asked if participants felt a technical EQA / proficiency testing scheme would be of benefit for Whole Slide Images (WSI) - to provide constructive feedback on image quality produced by various vendor systems or laboratories using different systems.
Whilst the response was overwhelmingly positive, development of the pilot was put on hold due to the pandemic. In 2021, the working group was re-stablished to set up such a technical EQA / proficiency testing scheme, with a pilot being proposed in 2022.
Whilst Digital Pathology is still in the early stages of adoption for many centres, for diagnostic reporting it is essential that a form of quality assurance is established to ensure this technology is implemented and utilised optimally.
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