Digital Pathology versus Traditional Microscopy

Digital pathology can be considered as an adjunct to traditional microscopy. In traditional microscopy, we require a microscope to view the glass slide. We can only view one slide, one field of view, and one exaggeration at a time. If we want to do any sort of analysis with a microscope, we have to remember the information from each field of view. For example, if we want to associate two slides, we have to look at one slide, store the information in our brain bank, look at the slide, and try to remember the one we looked at prior to make a comparison. In digital pathology, we have the benefit of doing things different way. We can view some digital slides on a computer monitor. We can combine them side-by-side if we want to calculate the entire cells or calculate protein expression; these can be done easily by computer software that can be seen on an image file and it is called a digital slide. In case of traditional microscopy, if we want to transfer the data with someone in a distant place, the slide has to be mailed. But with digital pathology, we can transmit the data with anyone in the world directly. It is also comparatively very easy to integrate a digital pathology system into a laboratory data system. Digital pathology can support the monitoring and consolidation of different sources of information required for pathological purposes to do work more proficiently and innovatively.