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Eindhoven, the Netherland and Glostrup, Denmark - Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) and Dako, a Danish company specializing in tissue-based cancer diagnostics, today announced that they have signed an agreement to integrate a selection of Dako’s image analysis applications into Philips’ future digital pathology solutions.
“Anatomic pathology is an essential element of virtually every cancer
diagnosis and the demand for it is ever-increasing.
Our goal is to develop integrated digital solutions
that enhance the operational efficiency and
productivity of pathology departments, as well as
increasing diagnostic confidence,” says Bob van
Gemen, General Manager of Philips Digital Pathology.
“I am convinced that our partnership with Dako, with
its leading market position and expert knowledge in
detecting and quantifying specific biomarkers in
cancer tissue, will significantly accelerate our
clinical applications development program.”
“We are very pleased to announce this collaboration
with Philips, a leading company in the healthcare
industry that is committed to entering the digital
pathology market,” says Lars Holmkvist, CEO of Dako.
“By joining forces with Philips, we will be able to
deliver highly competitive diagnostic tools based on
Philips’ extensive clinical expertise and technology
know-how and Dako’s expertise in advanced staining
and image analysis in order to benefit pathology
laboratories, pathologists and ultimately patients.”
Currently, anatomic pathology workflows to examine
tissue samples are based on the microscope, through
which pathologists examine tissue sections mounted
on glass slides and treated with different stains.
The staining enhances the contrast between, or
reveals the presence of, cellular and molecular
components such as cell nuclei or specific proteins.
Accurate interpretation of the results is critical
to the diagnosis and staging of each individual
patient’s disease and requires a great deal of skill
and experience. Digitizing the images that
pathologists normally view through a microscope may
enable the introduction of objective and
quantitative image analysis tools.
Dr. Clive Taylor, MD, PhD, Professor at University
of Southern California, USA, and a renowned expert
in pathology, expresses about the collaboration:
“Digital pathology has been long in gestation, in
comparison to radiology, where images also are the
currency of practice, and where image acquisition,
transfer, interpretation and storage is almost
entirely digital. In part, this lag is because
acquisition of histopathology images is dependent
upon a 100 year old technique of ‘tissue fixation’,
sectioning and staining. In part, it is because,
somewhat surprisingly, fully digitized
histopathology images are much larger than CT files,
and difficult to manage and analyze. Progress has
been slow because there has been no single
institution, or company, that embraces both of these
areas. It is exciting that collaborations like that
between Dako and Philips are now bringing diverse
but appropriate expertise to bear on implementing a
full digital pathology program.”
A fast pathology slide scanner and an associated
image management system form the basis of Philips’
proposed integrated solutions for digitizing
pathology workflows. The Philips-Dako collaboration
will initially focus on leveraging Dako’s image
analysis software for tissue-based breast cancer
diagnosis using its reagents for staining HER2,
Estrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR),
p53 and Ki-67 proteins. The detection and
quantification of these proteins in biopsy tissue
are highly relevant for the classification of breast
cancers and the selection of appropriate therapy.
Philips and Dako will also explore the possibility
of extending the collaboration to include image
analysis software for immunohistology-based prostate
and colon cancer diagnostics.
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