Slow Digital Pathology Adoption Continues, According to Labcorp Report

Chief Medical Officer Deborah Sesok-Pizzini discusses digital pathology challenges and opportunities 

Photo portrait of Scott Wallask
Scott Wallask, BA
Photo portrait of Scott Wallask

Scott Wallask, BA, is senior editorial manager for Today’s Clinical Lab and G2 Intelligence. He has spent more than 25 years covering the healthcare and high-tech industries. A former newspaper reporter, he graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in journalism.

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Published:Jan 30, 2025
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A recent report from Labcorp indicates that just one-third of clinical laboratories have carried out plans for whole-slide imaging. The culprit for this slow pace of digital pathology adoption? Costs.

That’s according to Deborah Sesok-Pizzini, MD, MBA, chief medical officer at Labcorp, who spoke with Today’s Clinical Lab about the challenges in digital pathology and tie-ins with artificial intelligence (AI). 

“Industry adoption of digital pathology has been slower than expected, largely due to high initial costs,” Sesok-Pizzini says. “When the technology really started to come out, and we started getting some FDA approvals for use of scanners, we also had the COVID crisis going on.” 

Deborah Sesok-Pizzini, MD, MBA, chief medical officer at Labcorp

Deborah Sesok-Pizzini, MD, MBA

Labcorp

Funding that health system leaders originally earmarked for digital pathology were instead diverted to managing the public health response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, including paying to keep labs staffed as fully as possible, she adds. The financial burden of restoring digital pathology funding after the pandemic has been particularly challenging for smaller health systems, making it difficult for clinical labs to invest in expensive equipment such as scanners. 

Most medical laboratories haven’t started digital pathology adoption

Labcorp’s 2024 report, “The Pulse of the Lab Leader,” dissects survey responses from 115 laboratory medicine experts, including pathologists, lab managers, and lab directors across the US. 

Among its findings:

  • Only 33 percent of respondents have started or plan to implement digital pathology in lab workflows.
  • Only 31 percent expect AI and automation to transform lab management in the next three to five years.

Observers have long noted that digital pathology adoption has been slow, although the Labcorp results put a hard number on that fact. The responses to AI and automation suggest that the newer technology may be on a similarly long road to wide acceptance despite the hype surrounding it.

Sesok-Pizzini sees a hesitation among lab leaders to change existing workflows, even if AI could make them more efficient.

“With lab testing right now, we have well-established, effective workflows,” she says. By contrast, AI has the potential “to revolutionize these processes in ways that are not yet top of mind for many labs.”

Much like with any new technology, early adopters will play an outsized role in determining how peer labs react and how they recognize its value for efficiency and patient care. 

“As we see more labs investing in AI and people see tangible results from AI … other laboratories will begin to understand the power of that technology,” Sesok-Pizzini notes. “Labs may be less concerned with complexity and cost of integration if they see others doing it in such a way that it is cost effective and efficient and adds value to patient care.”

Integrating AI with digital pathology

Adopters of digital pathology have pegged AI as a crown jewel of sorts, in that it is able to analyze pixels of information in a way that human eyes cannot. 

“The advantage of digital pathology being closely wedded to AI is important,” Sesok-Pizzini says. Digital pathology adoption brings immediate benefits of sharing slides remotely with colleagues and having easier access to past slide storage. But long term, AI’s ability to study and aggregate past cases will help move patient care forward as the technology learns patterns of diseases from images, she continues.

“We’re excited about the AI part of digital pathology and how this may help with testing accuracy, better diagnosis for tumors, and better quantification for [immunohistochemistry] staining,” she adds.

Labcorp has installed 20 digital pathology scanners across 14 of its global sites. Much of that equipment is used by the company's biopharma business, but the diagnostics side of the firm is also preparing to roll out digital pathology workflows.

A final note about training staff

An important point to remember for labs considering digital pathology adoption is that training is also a significant cost to account for when planning for such a project.

“While new technology like AI and digital pathology can be helpful, there will be significant training requirements before mastery of the technology,” Labcorp’s report states.

Clinical laboratory leaders should assess past technology rollouts—perhaps the cost of a prior laboratory information system or integration with an electronic health records platform—to see what kind of dent training puts in those budgets.


Scott Wallask, BA
Scott Wallask, BA

Scott Wallask, BA, is senior editorial manager for Today’s Clinical Lab and G2 Intelligence. He has spent more than 25 years covering the healthcare and high-tech industries. A former newspaper reporter, he graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in journalism.


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