Institut für Allgemeine Pathologie und Pathologische Anatomie der Technischen Universität München right next to Klinikum der Rechts der Isar
Visit on Thursday, 6th of June 2023

As part of our ongoing project med4PAN our project member Ilgar Guseinov met Prof. Dr. Schüffler from the Technische Universität München (TUM), in the annual conference for pathologists, called Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pathologie (106th), held in Leipzig last month June 2023. A few weeks after our project members Anna Schmaus-Klughammer, Somaia Abubaker and Ilgar Guseinov were privileged to meet with the professor who holds a Professorship for Computational Pathology at the Institut für Allgemeine Pathologie und Pathologische Anatomie der Technischen Universität München right next to Klinikum der Rechts der Isar. The intention of this meeting were further discussions on our ongoing project and the prospectives on future cooperation.

First, we had a tour of the pathology center and its departments. We had a look at the process of specimens’ preparation, and segmentation, as well as the prospective assessment through microscopes and the retrospective assessment through whole slide scanners. We discussed the overall workflow of pathology in this regard. The professor, who is specialized in computational pathology, showed us the processes which where they were able to digitalize. He mentioned important aspects for the appropriate integration of AI into the pathologist’s workflow, regulatory considerations, and the importance of validating AI tools by adequate studies. The department personnel continuously develop, apply, and validate new cancer detection, segmentation, and quantification models in digital histological slides.

We discussed several challenges the department encounters in the digitalization process and how those challenges can be tackled to achieve higher efficiency. These challenges accommodate legislative procedures, anonymization of data, acceptance, and adaptation by pathologists, as well as the imperative requirement for large cloud or hardware storage, and high internet speed. We pointed out our interest in a cooperation for using the 5G services for the enhancement of the technologies. Since medical services are usually time-sensitive, and software for data storage and processing whether in AI or other aspects of digital pathology needs a high-speed connection for effective delivery of services, we think that such integration of 5G in the department will have very promising results in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

We also talked about our ongoing project in the use case on pathology and how our research can be efficiently applied in the university hospital in the next phase. We worked on discussing and shaping ideas that are deemed most suitable for the department. The overall visit was fruitful, as it gave a closer look at what is applied in the digital pathology laboratory. We are inspired by all the achievements seen in this digital pathology laboratory. We were also interested in parts that need further development and improvement to form the cornerstone component for the next phase of application in the med4PAN project. We look forward to our project’s next steps and the prospective partnership.