Experiences in the production of digital slides by an automated high-resolution scanner system after automated slide preparation

Background: Automated slide preparation systems are available for routine histological use. We recently developed and installed the Hi-Scope slide scanner system in a routine environment. Hi-Scope is an autoloader, autoscanner, and auto-focusing slide scanner.

Aim: The evaluation of High-Scope for everyday applications.

Methods: Hi-Scope and digital storage environment were installed in the biopsy specimen laboratory. 5 micron thick sections from endoscopic and surgical material of diseased gut wall were prepared as usual. The slides were deparaffined, stained, and coverslipped using automated system. The barcode labeled slides were placed into the Slide-Scope cassette and scanned by the Hi-Scope system automatically. A day 100 to 200 slides were scanned. Slides were stored on dedicated slide server computers equipped with fast short-term and slow long-term storage components.

Results: In the experiment 4000 slides were scanned altogether and 6 cassettes were reused continuously. From the 80 cassette loading cycle the cassette stuck once. From the three types of slides used the machine could not load 3% of the cheap, low-quality no name slides, 0.5% of the Superfrost slides with square edges and corners and 0.1% of the Strafrost slides with grounded edges and corners. A slide load, unload cycle is 10 seconds. Slides were identified using 6 decimal digit barcodes. The resolution was 0.16 micron/pixel. The scanning speed of the system was 2.5 images/second including autofocusing. With this resolution 1 square mm was scanned in 20 seconds and resulted 20Mbyte digital data using 1:5 JPEG compression.

Conclusion: Hi-Scope can be used in routine practice for slide digitization and archiving.