The current trend in healthcare is to use minimally invasive procedures to obtain material for diagnosis, as opposed to surgical resections. Fine needle aspiration (FNA) is one such type of minimally invasive biopsy.¹
To combat recalling a patient and repeating the procedure, a rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) of biopsy material is performed by a cytopathologist while the patient awaits the outcome of the evaluation. If required, additional material can be collected while the patient is still present until adequacy has been determined. Institutions employing ROSE have reported reduced repeat procedure rates as low as 1% to 2%.¹
However, the growth in ROSE procedures has outpaced the availability of cytopathologists. Current practice often requires these specialists to travel in order to attend these procedures, resulting in downtime, loss of productivity, and significant income reduction.
While guided-imaging techniques, such as endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA), increase the accuracy of these minimally invasive procedures, the inability to confirm the presence of diagnostic material in real-time can lead to costly repeat procedures. Studies² from UPMC have shown that a 24% reduction in unsuccessful biopsies can reduce costs by approximately $404,000 per year.³
The on-site presence of a Class I, L5 or L5-20 system with its remotely controlled robotic microscope allows a cytopathologist to perform a ROSE remotely, confirming the presence of diagnostic tissue from wherever they are. This real-time telemicroscopy capability allows in-demand cytopathologists to meet the growing ROSE workload, eliminating loss of cytopathology income and reduction of overall healthcare costs.
Our SL5 system is dual-mode, and includes the robotic microscope of the L5 for live telemicroscopy applications and a whole-slide scanner for digital pathology, research-only applications.
Live telemicroscopy distributes your pathology expertise across the hall, town and the world. Affordable, portable and simple to use solutions from Mikroscan help confirm adequate biopsies on the first pass, let you consult remotely in real-time, reduce travel, avoid unnecessary and expensive repeat procedures, and improve your bottom line.
