Original title: Diagnostic concordance of remote WSI-based thyroid cytology compared to conventional cytological diagnosis: a pilot study
Abdullah Sahin, Özben Yalçın, Şeyma Büyücek, Merve Dogan Ayan +1 · September 2026
Doctors need to know if they can safely diagnose thyroid diseases from digital computer images instead of traditional glass slides under a microscope. Whole slide imagingScanning a glass slide with tissue into a high-resolution digital image that can be viewed on a computer. turns physical slides into digital files so specialists can view them remotely. In this study, researchers tested whether pathologists looking at digital scans arrived at the same conclusions as a pathologist using a standard microscope. They discovered that the digital and physical diagnoses agreed moderately well overall. Most importantly, the pathologists never mixed up benign conditions, which are non-cancerous, with malignant ones, which are cancerous. The diagnoses matched best on clear cancer cases. However, disagreements happened when cell samples looked borderline or uncertain. Overall, using digital slides for remote thyroid checks is promising and workable, though difficult, borderline cases still show noticeable differences.
You are trying to decide if a strange noise in your car is serious. Normally a mechanic can listen in person and know right away. But if you record the sound and send it to a different mechanic, they might hear it differently because the recording picks up background noise. In this paper, the glass slide is like hearing the noise in person, and the digital scan is like the recording – the diagnosis can change, especially for sounds that are hard to describe.
For patients in rural or remote areas, thyroid diagnosis often requires sending glass slides to a specialist. If remote digital review proves reliable, they could get faster results without travel. This pilot study shows moderate agreement, but indeterminate cases remain tricky, meaning remote diagnosis is promising but not yet proven for all cases.
This is a pilot study with only thirteen cases, so results are preliminary and not generalizable. Variability was more pronounced in indeterminate categories, but the small sample size limits detailed analysis. The study did not assess time, cost, or workflow impacts of WSI. Larger multicenter studies are needed to confirm feasibility and establish broader reliability.
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Diagnostic concordance of remote WSI-based thyroid cytology compared to conventional cytological diagnosis: a pilot study — Abdullah Sahin, Özben Yalçın, Şeyma Büyücek et al. — Diagnostic Pathology — doi:10.1186/s13000-026-01820-9
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.