09:00–09:40  |  Keynote address – Darren Treanor, Consultant Histopathologist & Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and University of Leeds

The UK National Pathology Imaging Co-operative (NPIC) is a substantial program to deploy digital pathology for clinical use in the NHS, and provide an infrastructure to support artificial intelligence development and deployment.

Based on a single national digital pathology PACS system that can scale to the entire NHS, NPIC will initially link over 40 NHS laboratories. The deployment includes several regional pathology networks, and two national networks (in bone and soft tissue tumours and paediatric tumours), with the capability to add more in future. This talk will give an update on progress to date from the NPIC program, lessons learned and some of our future plans

10:15–10:45  |  Keynote address – Arnaud Gauthier, MD Consultant Pathologist, Head of Digital Pathology and Paediatric Pathology, Institut Curie, Paris, France

The two sites of the pathology department of the Institut Curie (1,600 slides per day) integrated an image management system within a few months, allowing a transition to a fully digital activity. This includes macroscopy, histology, cytology, and in situ hybridization. The generated images paved the way for routine image analysis tools.

14:25–14.50  |  Daljeet Bansal, NPIC Operations Director, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, UK

NPIC is leading by example and has established a digital pathology platform for supporting research in the NHS. NPIC offers evaluation of AI across multiple sites to support multimodal studies, clinical trials, image standards and regulations.

09:00–09.40  |  Keynote address – Paul Van Diest, Professor of Pathology, Head of Department of Pathology, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands

The possibilities of AI in pathology seem to be unlimited, and all over the world many research groups are developing useful algorithms. Further, many startup companies are trying to market algorithms. Nevertheless, implementation into daily practice seems to be lagging behind dramatically. In this presentation, current status of implementation of AI in pathology will be reviewed and implementation hurdles will be discussed.

12:00–12.25  |  Kevin Sandeman, Department Manager, Pathology Dept, Region Skåne, Sweden

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds immense potential, with numerous AI-based products on the market. However, the application of AI in clinical pathology is limited, with AI algorithms demonstrating local success. There is a need for clinical validation to ensure patient safety and clinical effectiveness. Because many regions lack the resources for the validation process, a national cooperation with a national database is crucial for sharing resources. Our solution established a pilot for a national platform that guarantees validation capacity and facilitates safe and effective clinical implementation of AI solutions. As a first clinical question automated Ki67-calculation in breast cancer is addressed as it promises both a reduction of interobserver variation and a shorter average time for calculation by the pathologist.

15:05–15.30  |  Sonali Natu, Consultant Cellular Pathologist, Tees Valley Pathology Services and Clinical Lead for Pathology, North East and North Cumbria

Laboratory Accreditation is an integral part of providing high quality services. Implementation of digital pathology technology falls within the scope of accreditation. The talk will summarise where we are at now with this process and where we need to go with it. Vendors of digital pathology platform and potentially AI applications have to be engaged with this process to ensure the use of technology is regulated and meets the standards required for providing high quality services.