Evaluation of Accuracy and Repeatability of Static Telepathology Diagnosis in Assessing the Severity of Dysplasia in Cervical Samples

Background Telemedicine is one of the leading medical territories, and telepathology and telecytology are subsets of telemedicine. This study was designed to evaluate static telepathology in cervical biopsies. Materials and Methods After obtaining approval from the ethics committee of the University, 90 cervical biopsies were extracted from the archive of CIN. These samples were blindly selected and evaluated by fourth-year pathology residents. Then, two experienced pathologists in the field of pathology evaluated the samples. They were reevaluated after 3 months. Data were coded and entered in the SPSS software version 16. The convergence of intrapersonal and interpersonal of diagnoses was compared. Results 90 samples were evaluated which contained 270 glass slides. Samples were colored by the H&E method. A total of 808 digital images with a size of 675 megabits were extracted. Each image size was 835 kilobits with 1840 * 3260 mm dimensions. Convergence between pathologists and over a time period was examined. There was a relatively good convergence of intrapersonal and interpersonal of diagnoses for glass and digital slides. The reliability of the methods was acceptable and good. Conclusion In comparison, there is no significant difference in the intrapersonal and interpersonal reliability of diagnoses for glassy and digital slides, but the diagnosis agreement between them is lower.