Proscia® Granted U.S. Patent for Computer-implemented Method of Evaluating Medical Images

Proscia, a provider of AI-enabled digital
pathology software, has been granted U.S. Patent 10,496,742 by the United
States Patent and Treasury Office (USPTO). The patent relates to techniques for
evaluating medical images, including whole slide images, in a networked
computer environment to streamline pathologist review and accelerate the
collection of data to train and validate artificial intelligence (AI)
applications. 

For more than 150 years, the standard of
care for diagnosing biopsies has relied on a pathologist’s interpretation of
patterns in tissue as viewed under a microscope. The limitations of this practice
have given rise to digital pathology in which specialized scanners capture
whole slide images of tissue samples prepared on glass slides. Proscia’s
Concentriq® digital pathology platform can be used to view manage and share
whole slide images. They can also be analyzed by computational solutions
leveraging artificial intelligence.

U.S. Patent No. 10,496,742 covers
techniques for a computer-implemented system of evaluating whole slide images
to streamline pathologist review and support the collection of training and
validation data for artificial intelligence development. It describes
techniques that allow for whole slide images to be efficiently shared through a
digital review platform as well as addresses the creation of templated forms,
which pathologists can use to capture diagnostic data and regions of interest.

Systems as disclosed by the patent also
include a centralized server for collecting this data from pathologists and
storing it for use. Such systems can use collected data to train an artificial
intelligence algorithm whereby they receive a new whole slide image and apply
machine-learning trained on the data to output a diagnosis.