Enabling the transition to 3D digital pathology

ongoing

Histopathology is a century-old standard for the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases, and for the choice of personalized treatments. Despite its paramount importance for clinical practice, this method is still limited to the analysis of thin slices, presenting a 2D view of the intrinsically 3D structure of biological tissue. Current histopathology practice poses the risk of severely undersampling relevant tissue features: indeed, a growing amount of data demonstrates that traditional 2D analysis produces inconsistent and unreliable results that may have important implications in treatment choice and other clinical decisions. Despite the compelling evidence of the clinical benefits of volumetric tissue analysis, clinical practice is still anchored to 2D imaging. A transition towards 3D inspection would be a quantum leap in the histopathology field but has been prevented hitherto because of technical limitations. Indeed, light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) has been hailed in the last decades as a game changer in the field. However, LSFM-based solutions have profound limitations in terms of throughput, reliability and scalability that prevent their use outside specialised research labs. In 3DPATH, we want to leverage several key innovations in LSFM and data analysis technology – developed in previous research projects – to develop a 3D tissue scanner suitable for clinical use. The success of this project will revolutionize histopathology leading to more accurate diagnosis, improving quality of care for patients all over the world, and bringing Europe at the forefront of diagnostic technologies.