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MINUTES
DICOM WORKING GROUP TWENTY-SIX
(Pathology)
July 2, 2010
Called to order: 1:30 PM EEST
Meeting closed: 3:40 PM EEST
Presiding Officer: Bruce Beckwith
Attendance:
ORGANIZATION
Applied Spectral Imaging
Aurora
Claro
College of American
Pathologists
College of American
Pathologists
French National Research
Labs
Hamamatsu Photonics
Kaunas University
iPath
Motic
Newport Instruments
Omnyx
Olympus Soft Imaging
Philips
SEIS
TRIVBN
Vastro Gotalands Regioneu
Vastro Gotalands Regioneu
Person
Kolatt, Tsafrir
Smith, Matthew
Hanada, Nozomi
Role
Observer
Observer
Observer
Beckwith, Bruce
Rep
MacDonald, Jim
Alt
Racoceanu, Daniel
Cooke, Jeremy
Punys, Vytenis
McCleary, David
Chen, Jin
Leif, Robert
Meissner, Michael
Schilling, Tobias
Hulsken, Bas
Garcia-Rojo, Marcial
Klossa, Jacques
Wintell, Mikael
Papaioannou, Theo
Observer
Observer
Observer
Observer
Observer
Observer
Observer
Observer
Alt
Rep
Rep
Observer
Observer
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DICOM WG-26 – Pathology
September 27, 2008
Work Items assigned:
1. Bas Hulsken will draft a statement of the issues regarding presentation of multi-spectral
images and a proposed work item.
2. Michael Meissner will send an email to the list serve requesting members to identify and
contact anatomic pathology LIS vendors and encourage them to attend our next meeting
to learn about the recent advances for supporting pathology in DICOM and to interest
them in implementing the IHE technical framework for pathology.
3. Bruce Beckwith will contact Christel Daniel and ask if she would present the IHE
progress to LIS vendors so as to educate them and help in encouraging them to
implement the functions described.
4. Bruce Beckwith will look into meeting plans for face to face meetings in 2011.
5. Bruce Beckwith and James MacDonald will take steps to publicize Supplement 145 once
the final text is issued.
The meeting began with a roll call of those present and attending by web/phone conference. We
welcomed a number of first time attendees.
The first agenda item was to review the ballot comments for Sup145 in anticipation of presenting
it to WG-06 in August for issuing the final text.
Bruce led the review of the comments. The comments and responses had been circulated by the
list serve previously and Harry Solomon incorporated them into a new version of the draft
supplement. We had minimal discussion and agreed that the responses and the latest draft were
acceptable.
We then turned to a discussion of how to publicize Supplement 145 after the final text is issued.
Bruce reported that he has been working with the College of American Pathologists to prepare a
press release. In addition, CAP Today, a trade publication is going to have an article on digital
pathology which will highlight the progress with Sup145. Matthew Smith reported that he is
working on a white paper on digital pathology for the Digital Pathology Association and he will
make sure to include information regarding Sup145 and the IHE work in it.
We also brainstormed on other avenues to inform people of this news. Bruce reported that he
will be speaking at the Pathology Informatics 2010 meeting in Boston in September about this
topic. We identified the blogs of Bruce Friedman (LabSoft News) and Keith Kaplan (Digital
Pathology Blog) and the linked in Digital Pathology group and the digital pathology wiki.
We also thought we could ask the Pathology Visions organizers to post information about
Sup145 on their website.
The second issue that we discussed was the challenges related to displaying multi-spectral
images, since there may be more than three color channels and some or all of them may not be in
the visible spectrum. In addition there are considerations when doing multiple fluorescence
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DICOM WG-26 – Pathology
September 27, 2008
channel images regarding cross talk between the channels. Basically we think we need to define
a method for taking n channels and combining them into user perceivable RGB images. ICC
profiles are limited to 3 color channels in the visible range, at least in DICOM. This was
perceived by those present as being a fairly complex issue and Bas Hulsken volunteered to create
some PowerPoint images to try to illustrate the issue and also to create a written statement of the
issue that we can use as a basis for a new work item request.
The third item we discussed was the schedule of future meetings. At this point we do not have
any future meetings in 2011 scheduled. We discussed that since we are working on improving
adoption and wanted to make sure of close cooperation with IHE; it might be useful to arrange to
have meetings in conjunction with IHE pathology.
We discussed some possible meeting dates and locations for 2011.
March 2011, in conjunction with USCAP meeting in San Antonio, Texas, USA
August 2011, in conjunction with European Congress of Pathology, Helsinki, Finland.
Bruce will contact Christel Daniel to see whether dates and locations for IHE Pathology
meetings have been set yet.
There was general agreement that having a meeting in conjunction with both of the pathology
congresses made sense, pending the information regarding IHE.
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DICOM WG-26 – Pathology
September 27, 2008
Next Steps:
We anticipate going to WG-06 in August and having the final text be available in September for
Sup145.
We wish to present the work item proposal to WG-06 to get their input on it before sending it
along to the DICOM Committee.
Future Work:
This might be a work item that we could take up in the future. Among other ideas were looking
at capturing more detail in the image processing steps, how to handle validation of scanners,
“hanging protocols” for pathology images, LIS integration and workflow and encouraging
vendors to participate in IHE connect-a-thons.
Upcoming Meetings:
Our next face to face meeting of WG-26 will take place in San Diego in conjunction with the
Pathology Visions Conference. The meeting will take place on Sunday, Oct. 24 from 8 AM to
12 Noon.
Reported by:
Bruce Beckwith, Co-Chair
July 4, 2010
Reviewed by counsel:
July 7, 2010
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DICOM WG-26 – Pathology
September 27, 2008