The modern histopathologist: in the changing face of time

Abstract

The molecular age histopathologist of today is practicing pathology in a totally different scenario than the preceding generations did. Histopathologists stand, as of now, on the cross roads of a traditional 'visible' morphological science and an 'invisible' molecular science. As molecular diagnosis finds more and more applicability in histopathological diagnosis, it is time for the policy makers to reframe the process of accreditation and re-accreditation of the modern histopathologist in context to the rapid changes taking place in this science. Incorporation of such 'molecular' training viv-a-vis information communication technology skills viz. telemedicine and telepathology, digital imaging techniques and photography and a sound knowledge of the economy that the fresh entrant would ultimately become a part of would go a long way to produce the Modern Histopathologist. This review attempts to look at some of these aspects of this rapidly advancing 'art of science.'

Changes of collagen ultrastructure in breast cancer tissue determined by second-harmonic generation double Stokes-Mueller polarimetric microscopy

“…The gold standard of cancer diagnosis is based on microscopy of histopathology slides that are stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) dyes. H&E staining provides high contrast in bright-field microscopy images that can be used to reveal qualitative information on morphological changes due to tumor initiation and progression [5]. The same slides can be conveniently used for multicontrast nonlinear imaging with multiphoton excitation fluorescence, second-harmonic generation (SHG), and third-harmonic generation (THG) microscopy providing complementary information about the tissue structure [6].…”

Quantitatively characterizing the microstructural features of breast ductal carcinoma tissues in different progression stages by Mueller matrix microscope

“…Clearly early diagnosis is crucial for treatment of breast cancer. Currently, the gold standard of cancer diagnosis is the pathological observation of histological tissue slices using optical microscopy, which requires physical tissue sections to be stained with certain dyes such as hematoxylin and eosin (H and E), and evaluation by experienced pathologists [8,9]. Recently, more and more optical techniques have been applied to breast carcinoma tissues in order to extract possible indicators for characteristic pathological structural features.…”

Guidelines for standard photography in gross and clinical anatomy

“…The sensor is composed of a grid of individual elements that react to light, and it transforms reflected light into voltage (Miot et al, 2006;Peck et al, 2010). Each light-sensitive element within the sensor has a photon detector and an amplifier, which captures light and converts it into an electrical signal (Saikia et al, 2008;Peck et al, 2010). The sensor is not capable of differentiating colors.…”

“…Furthermore, the quality of a digital image can be improved with certain manipulations using certain imageediting softwares (Saikia et al, 2008). Color enhancement and unsharp-mask are among these manipulations.…”

“…Most cameras contain CCD or complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensors, which produce images of the highest quality (Saikia et al, 2008;Peck et al, 2010). However, cameras differ with respect to the size of the sensor and its sensitivity to light (Galdino et al, 2001).…”