Pune, Jan 31st: The war against Cancer just got a worthy and powerful ally in OptraSCAN’s end-to-end Digital Pathology platform and solutions that seeks to bring in greater objectivity and precision in both cancer diagnosis and research.
The path-breaking solution has successfully completed the mass validation of its whole slide digital scanner with the continued support of the Government of India’s Biotechnology Industrial Partnership Programme (BIPP) and is in keeping with the Prime Minister’s call for ‘Make in India’ initiatives.
The Digital Pathology platform is the brainchild of Pune’s very own bio- medical engineer and reputed technocrat-entrepreneur, also the founder and chairman of Optra Group of Companies Abhi Gholap, who has bagged 17 intellectual rights patents. The maker’s mission is to make digital pathology easily accessible through an affordable and socially responsible business model for the benefit of masses.
Speaking on the occasion, Gholap said: “India has long been recognized as IT-Services country, though recently, Infosys founder Mr. Narayana Murthy had expressed disappointment over the fact that India had not produced any earth-shaking invention to delight global citizens for the last few years. Hopefully, OptraScan’s latest work should fill the lacunae. In fact, we are poised to do away with the 150 year old Optical Microscopes and bring in much-needed objectivity in pathological diagnosis and research. By removing subjectivity in microscopy and replacing it with digital pathology, we hope to make cancer diagnosis more precise. Soon multinational companies will license technology from us and this will great benefit people on a mass scale.”
He further added: “Confined earlier to only research applications, OptraSCAN now offers a perfect tool for transition from conventional microscopy to digital pathology for the effective acquisition of Whole Slide Images, viewing, sharing as well as analysis and management of digital slides and associated metadata.”
“It was indeed a great experience to work on the validation project for OptraScan, digital pathology platform. Its small footprint makes it useful for even small sized laboratories. The image comparison with the light microscopy images is satisfactory and bigger advantage is facility to do Image analysis in the same setting. Entire technical team was very enthusiastic and proactive for whatever software or hardware refinements needed during the validation process.
I wish all the best to the entire team and I am sure this platform should make transition from conventional to digital pathology very smooth for all the users.’ Said Dr. Sujit Joshi, Consulting Oncopathologist- Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital & OncoSight Diagnostics
“I have seen OptraSCAN product in action & also have validated whole slide scanner. The results are very encouraging and I am very impressed with the technology & affordability which will surely be very beneficial for easy adaption to our digital pathology needs.” Dr.Bageshri Gogate- Prof and Head, Dept of Pathology, Incharge, Central Clinical Laboratory, Smt. Kashibai Navale Medical College, Pune
OptraSCAN solution will enable easy and quick transformation from conventional microscopy to digital pathology through digitization of glass slides, assistance in analysis and interpretation of images, real-time sharing of images for expert opinions there by aiding early detection and treatment.
The need for innovative and cutting edge technology to fight Cancer comes on the backdrop of a grim reality–that it is one of India’s fast growing diseases. On an average, more than 1,300 Indians succumb to the dreaded disease every day. With new cancer cases or its incidence in India estimated to grow by 25% by 2020 (according to the cancer registry released by the Indian Council of Medical Research), cancer has become one of the major causes of death occurring in the country.
This scenario will require faster and accurate diagnosis for patient’s cases with reduced turnaround time. The deployment of OptraSCAN’s Telepathology system would not only allow collaboration between pathologists but also enable quick accessibility in remote areas of the country for benefit of rural patients.
With the successful completion of mass validation and positive response from leading Cancer Research and Treatment Centers, established big hospitals, diagnostics laboratories operating across India with hub & spoke model and leading academic and research institutes, OptraSCAN is well positioned to jump start and commercialize its end –to-end digital pathology solutions which includes a small footprint, high and low throughput WSI scanner, an integrated image viewer and image management system, image analysis and CARDS ( computer aided region detection system).
