Hi, I am a pathologist working is remote setup. Some of our labs are even remote. I need a miscoscope setup which can be handled remotely and is good for seeing hematology slides particularly platelets, malaria parasite urine and stool microscopy.
Please suggest me which setup I should go with so that these needs can be met.
Welcome to OpenFlexure @Anurag09 .
I must state that the OpenFlexure Microscope is not a certified medical device. A design itself cannot be certified, and there are currently no manufacturers who have certification to sell the OpenFlexure Microscope as a medical device.
It is currently being evaluated for a number of clinical applications, and is used in training.
Going back to your question, when you are examining these types of sample locally, what microscopy do you use? That will help to show which OpenFlexure version might be appropriate.
Of your applications we have most experience with thin and thick blood films for malaria. For that it would be the OpenFlexure Microscope with the high resolution optics version using a 100x oil immersion objective.
Blood cells and plasmodium are particularly small. If the other pathologies that you are interested in require less magnification, it might be a good idea to start your evaluation with one of them while you get the feel of using the OpenFlexure Microscope.
All versions (apart from the manual microscope) can be run remotely. However it is not usually useful to directly interact with the microscope remotely. It is also not easy to arrange network permissions for direct remote access from another network, without opening up major security holes.
As the samples need to be prepared and loaded onto the microscope, the model is usually that the person doing the preparation also has some training to be able to run a scan of the sample on the OpenFlexure Microscope. The scans are motorised, and currently we are working to make them even more reliable with automatic scan planning and stitching. These scans would then be reviewed remotely by a clinician - once the product and process have certification in the local jurisdiction.
Hi sir, Thankyou for your reply.
I am currently working on light microscope manufactured by Labomed Lx 500.
Schizonts and gametocytes of plasmodium vivex are roughly of same size of RBC. Platelets are around 5 micron. I have seen images expert and learned people of this group have taken and they are pretty good and i think my work can be done if i am able to achieve same level of image quality.
I plan to get my self familiar with the microscope then train technicians so that we are able to achieve our goal. So initially it it like a pet project.
Viewing slides remotely will an added advantage which will have its own challenges but i would like add that feature in my set up.
Please guide me how to achieve it.
What lighting and what lens do you use on the Labomed microscope for each of the different pathology slides?
Sir I am using halogen light source for microscope
for routein microscopy 40x in sufficient for counting platelets and look for malaria we use 100x oil immersion.
Platelets can now be counted as an average number of platelets per 1000 rbc and multiplying that number by total number of RBC.
In that case the High Resolution version would be needed to get a similar resolution and field of view, with similar objectives. The OpenFlexure Microscope is designed to be set for a particular task and it is not easy to change objectives, so you would need different microscopes to be able to switch quickly between those tasks.
To start getting used to the OpenFlexure Microscope, it would be easier to start with a 40× objective.