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A European network for virtual microscopy—design, implementation and evaluation of performance

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Abstract

Web-based virtual microscopy has enabled new applications within pathology. Here, we introduce and evaluate a network of academic servers, designed to maximize image accessibility to users from all regions of Europe. Whole-slide imaging was utilized to digitize the entire slide set (n = 154) for the slide seminars of the 21st European Congress of Pathology. The virtual slides were mirrored to five academic servers across Europe using a novel propagation method. Functionality was implemented that automatically selects the fastest server connection in order to optimize the slide-viewing speed (http://www.webmicroscope.net/ECP2007). Results show that during 6 months of monitoring the uptime of the network was 100%. The average viewing speed with the network was 3.1 Mbit/s, as compared to 1.9 Mbit/s using single servers. A good viewing speed (>2Mbit/s) was observed in 32 of 37 countries (86%), compared to 25 of 37 (68%) using single servers. Our study shows that implementing a virtual microscopy network spanning a large geographical area is technically feasible. By utilizing existing academic networks and cost-minimizing image compression, it is also economically feasible.

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Acknowledgments

This study has been supported by grants from Biomedicum Foundation, Finska Läkaresällskapet, Instrumentariumin Tiedesäätiö, Medicinska Understödsföreningen Liv och Hälsa, Svenska Kulturfonden, and COST Action IC0604 Euro-Telepath.

Conflict of interest statement

We declare that we have no conflict of interest

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncology, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Mikael Lundin & Johan Lundin

  2. Folkhälsan Research Center, Helsinki, Finland

    Mikael Lundin & Johan Lundin

  3. Department of Clinical Pathology, University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland

    Janusz Szymas

  4. Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI), Solna, Sweden

    Ewert Linder

  5. Department of Microbiology, Tumor, and Cell Biology (MTC), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ewert Linder

  6. Department of Pathology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

    Hans Beck, Peter de Wilde & Han van Krieken

  7. Pathology Department, Hospital General de Ciudad Real, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Marcial García Rojo & Ignacio Moreno

  8. Department of Pathology, Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Barcelona, Spain

    Aurelio Ariza

  9. Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Sitki Tuzlali

  10. Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty, Pathology Department, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Sergülen Dervişoğlu

  11. Department of Pathology, Haartman Institute, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Central Hospital, HUCH Laboratory Diagnostics, Helsinki, Finland

    Heikki Helin & Veli-Pekka Lehto

  12. Clinical Research Institute HUCH, Haartmaninkatu 4, P.O. Box 105, 00029, Helsinki, Finland

    Mikael Lundin

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  1. Mikael Lundin
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  2. Janusz Szymas
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  3. Ewert Linder
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  4. Hans Beck
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  11. Sergülen Dervişoğlu
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  12. Heikki Helin
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  14. Johan Lundin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mikael Lundin.

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Fig. S1

Connection speed (average of top half, Mbit/s) by country. For each country the connection speed to the network as well as to each single server is shown. The effect of a server within a country is clearly seen as peaks in 4 countries (Finland, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden). The server in Spain had a 100 Mbit/s connection, with decreased top speeds, but nonetheless providing excellent connections speeds to web users (GIF 168 KB)

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Lundin, M., Szymas, J., Linder, E. et al. A European network for virtual microscopy—design, implementation and evaluation of performance. Virchows Arch 454, 421–429 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-009-0749-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-009-0749-3

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