Telemedicine systems for collaborative diagnosis over the Internet: towards virtual "collaboratories"

The working experience of the National Institute for Cancer Research (INRC) of Genova, Italy, in the use of Internet technology for second opinions and teleconsultations in histology and cytology is presented. In the first section, the current state of the art of telepathology is reviewed and the main requirements, which generally address a telepathology system, are briefly analyzed. The second section investigates the experience of using Internet technology at INRC in current telepathology consultations. The evolution from static to dynamic telepathology in relation to the speed of the current communication channel is discussed. Finally, the concept of collaboration laboratories, defined in previous works as collaboratories, is introduced.