Dudas Radu, VandenBussche Christopher, Baras Alex, Ali Syed Z, Olson Matthew T
Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; Department of Radiology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
J Am Soc Cytopathol. 2014 Jan-Feb;3(1):49-55. doi: 10.1016/j.jasc.2013.09.005. Epub 2013 Oct 25.
There is currently substantial interest in dynamic telecytology-the presentation of microscopic findings by live video feed to a cytopathologist at a remote location. However, the initial costs of a telecytology system can be high. We present several low-cost alternatives along with their performance characteristics.
We tested 3 low-cost telecytology systems: a Raspberry Pi with a webcam, an iPhone 4S with FaceTime, and an iPhone 4S with a live streaming app. Costs, resolution capacities, and latency periods for image transmission were determined.
At $85.55, the Raspberry Pi system is the least expensive telecytology solution described to date. When the cost per megapixel of resolution is considered, the cost of a Raspberry Pi system is 120× less than the most expensive commercially available option and about 7-fold less than the iPhone-based alternatives. Latency periods were substantially lower for the iPhone systems: 2.5 ± 1 seconds for FaceTime and 2.8 ± 0.3 seconds for iPhone live streaming versus 6.6 ± 0.6 seconds for the Raspberry Pi system at comparable frame rates.
This proof-of-principle study demonstrates that inexpensive telecytology systems are able to stream live video feeds of cytology slides from a microscope to a remote location at useable resolutions.
目前，动态远程细胞学——通过实时视频将显微镜检查结果呈现给远程的细胞病理学家——备受关注。然而，远程细胞学系统的初始成本可能很高。我们介绍了几种低成本的替代方案及其性能特征。
我们测试了3种低成本的远程细胞学系统：配备网络摄像头的树莓派、带有FaceTime的iPhone 4S以及装有实时流应用程序的iPhone 4S。确定了图像传输的成本、分辨率能力和延迟时间。
树莓派系统价格为85.55美元，是迄今为止描述的最便宜的远程细胞学解决方案。考虑到每兆像素分辨率的成本，树莓派系统的成本比最昂贵的市售选项低120倍，比基于iPhone的替代方案低约7倍。iPhone系统的延迟时间明显更短：FaceTime为2.5±1秒，iPhone实时流为2.8±0.3秒，而在可比帧率下，树莓派系统为6.6±0.6秒。
这项原理验证研究表明，低成本的远程细胞学系统能够以可用分辨率将细胞学载玻片的实时视频流传输到远程位置。
