ASP Health had a successful exhibit booth and demonstrations of the ROSE Prep™ pro system at the American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) annual meeting held in Austin, Texas from November 16th through the 19th.
This year’s ASC conference was focused on Artificial Intelligence and its application in cytology. Although the use of Artificial Intelligence has been mentioned in earlier ASC annual meetings, the number of talks, posters, as well as exhibitors displaying their work on Artificial Intelligence dramatically increased this year. The keynote speeches pointed out different areas in which AI can help Cytopathologists. These include: aiding in the diagnosis of the Cytological specimens, helping to retrieve archival images of previous patients in hard-to-diagnose patient specimen slides, and reducing the time of identifying diagnostic cells present on the specimen slide.
One reason for this increased acceptance of AI in Cytology is due to the standardization of specimen deposition and specimen staining in the Cytopathology lab thanks to companies such as Hologic, BD, Stat Labs, ASP Health, etc. This standardization is critical for the development of AI software that can be utilized across multiple clinical sites. ASP Health’s ROSE Prep™ pro system is an innovative and fully automated system that has been designed to standardize the sample preparation process during Rapid On-Site Evaluation (ROSE) procedures. This automated method of sample preparation provides the much-needed standardization that is critical for the development of developmental AI algorithms for specimen slides obtained during ROSE.
Due to the increased conversations about the use of Artificial Intelligence at the conference, the Cytopathologists and Cytotechnologists visiting ASP Health’s exhibit booth quickly recognized the pivotal role the ROSE Prep™ pro system will play in the development of AI algorithms that can create efficiencies in the overall FNA procedure. The clinicians visiting ASP Health’s exhibit booth were also excited about the possibility of seamlessly combining it with tele-cytology and remote microscopy.
A few clinicians from large academic medical centers shared their interest in piloting the instrument for the satellite centers where multiple FNA procedures happen with very few Cytology personnel involved. Considering that both the Cytopathologists and Cytotechnologists are critical decision makers in the purchase decision of the ROSE Prep™ pro system, this conference was a significant success for ASP Health leading to a number of requests for follow-up on-site demonstrations and trials of the new automated sample preparation system.