IIIT Hyderabad hosted a one-day workshop on Digital Pathology and AI on 26 March. The   workshop brought together students, medical professionals, and AI researchers to discuss various aspects of how technology can be harnessed for better outcomes in pathology, which has been the foundation of diagnostic medicine for over a century. 

There is significant inter- and intra- observer variability among pathologists. Further, there is also a dearth of trained pathologists in specialised areas. In the era of precision medicine, accurate and reproducible grading by pathologists is paramount. Advancement in whole-slide scanning is helping to digitise the whole-slide image (WSI) and transforming the field of pathology to be collaborative. Digital pathology technology has increased the possibilities for automated, highly precise, and reproducible pathology diagnostics. This workshop helped understand the progress and impact of emerging technologies on clinical practice and provides direction for pathology education.

The workshop had talks by the following eminent people:

• Dr. Anil Parwani – Professor, Vice Chair and Director of Anatomical Pathology, The Ohio State University, Columbus gave a talk on Digital Pathology and AI for Pathology Diagnostic Applications: Current State and Future Directions
• Dr. Sangeeta Desai – Professor and Head of Department of Pathology, TATA Memorial Hospital, Mumbai gave a talk on Traversing the Digital Path to AI
  
• Dr. Sujay Prasad – Director, Anand Diagnostic Laboratory, Associate Medical director- Neuberg Diagnostics PVT Ltd. gave a talk on Integrating Data Science and Clinical Lab medicine
  
• Dr. Paromita Roy – Senior Consultant, Department of Pathology, Tata Memorial Centre, Kolkata gave a talk on Deep Learning for Pathologists – Defining the Ground Truth
• Dr. Megha S Uppin – Additional Professor, Department of Pathology, NIMS Hyderabad gave a talk on AI in Neuropathology: Current Status and Future Perspectives
• Dr. Tathagato Rai Dastidar – Founder and CEO, SigTuple gave a talk on  Image acquisition for digital pathology using AI: Challenges involved
  
• Prof. Jawahar C V – Amazon Chair Professor, Dean R&D , IIITH gave a talk on The role of data in developing AI applications for pathology
  
• Dr. Vinod P K – Associate Professor, IIITH gave a talk on Predicting genetic-histologic relationships

The workshop also had a Panel Discussion on Can pathologists who use AI replace pathologists? The panellists were Dr. Sangeetha Desai, Professor and Head of Department of Pathology, TATA Memorial Hospital, Mumbai ; Dr. Shantveer G Uppin, Professor & HOD, Department of Pathology, NIMS Hyderabad; Dr. Sujay Prasad, Director, Anand Diagnostic Laboratory, Associate Medical director- Neuberg Diagnostics PVT Ltd.; Dr. Anila Sharma, Senior Consultant, Histopathology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute, New Delhi; Dr. Sadashivudu Gundeti, Professor & HOD, Department of Medical Oncology, NIMS Hyderabad and Dr. Krishna Mohan, Senior Consultant, Medical Oncology, Basavatarakam Indo American Cancer Hospital and Research Institute 

Workshop page: https://hai.iiit.ac.in/events/workshops/cancer_diagnostics/

March 2023