Standardized Clinical Annotation of Digital Histopathology Slides at the Point of Diagnosis
Evans, Harriet Hero, Emily Minhas, Fayyaz Wahab, Noorul Dodd, Katherine Sahota, Harvir Ganguly, Ratnadeep Robinson, Andrew Neerudu, Manjuvani Blessing, Elaine
Evans, Harriet
Hero, Emily
Minhas, Fayyaz
Wahab, Noorul
Dodd, Katherine
Sahota, Harvir
Ganguly, Ratnadeep
Robinson, Andrew
Neerudu, Manjuvani
Blessing, Elaine
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Affiliation
Histopathology Department, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Coventry, United Kingdom; Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom. Electronic address: harriet.evans4@nhs.net.
Histopathology Department, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Coventry, United Kingdom; Histopathology Department, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Tissue Image Analytics Centre, Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Histopathology Department, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Histopathology Department, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Coventry, United Kingdom; Department of Psychiatry, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Histopathology Department, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Coventry, United Kingdom; Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Other Contributors
Publication date
2023-08-04
Subject
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Abstract
As digital pathology replaces conventional glass slide microscopy as a means of reporting cellular pathology samples, the annotation of digital pathology whole slide images is rapidly becoming part of a pathologist's regular practice. Currently, there is no recognizable organization of these annotations, and as a result, pathologists adopt an arbitrary approach to defining regions of interest, leading to irregularity and inconsistency and limiting the downstream efficient use of this valuable effort. In this study, we propose a Standardized Annotation Reporting Style for digital whole slide images. We formed a list of 167 commonly annotated entities (under 12 specialty subcategories) based on review of Royal College of Pathologists and College of American Pathologists documents, feedback from reporting pathologists in our NHS department, and experience in developing annotation dictionaries for PathLAKE research projects. Each entity was assigned a suitable annotation shape, SNOMED CT (SNOMED International) code, and unique color. Additionally, as an example of how the approach could be expanded to specific tumor types, all lung tumors in the fifth World Health Organization of thoracic tumors 2021 were included. The proposed standardization of annotations increases their utility, making them identifiable at low power and searchable across and between cases. This would aid pathologists reporting and reviewing cases and enable annotations to be used for research. This structured approach could serve as the basis for an industry standard and be easily adopted to ensure maximum functionality and efficiency in the use of annotations made during routine clinical examination of digital slides.
Citation
Mod Pathol. 2023 Nov;36(11):100297
Type
Article