In addition to colorectal and non-small cell lung cancer it is now possible for TissueMark® to support tissue analysis on breast tissue slides.

BEL AIR, MD, USA, June 24, 2014 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Awarded Frost & Sullivan European New Product Innovation for Automated Image Analysis for Digital Pathology, TissueMark® is an easy to use software tool which offers rapid assistance for the pathologist in the analysis of H&E stained digital slides. It provides automated calculations for the percentage tumor burden within a tissue section, highlights the areas of higher tumor concentration through display of a high resolution heatmap, and then clearly marks up the boundaries of the tumor tissue for subsequent dissection.

TissueMark® supports pathologists by estimating tumor content with accurate automated analysis, optimizes slide handling and laboratory workflow while also accelerating the entire macrodissection process. The software allows the pathologists to review results and annotations and provide corrections where they see necessary, which means they remain in control of the final decision.

Officially launched last November at the Association of Molecular Pathology annual conference, TissueMark® has been extremely well received and continues to evolve rapidly. PathXL has recently incorporated several new features to this application, including increased resolution versions of all algorithms and their most detailed heatmap to date, which together enable the detection of even smaller regions of tumor. TissueMark® can now accurately and rapidly handle full tissue sections and tissue biopsies.

"The new PathXL breast cancer algorithm is a very important addition to our TissueMark tumor analysis portfolio, and has been developed as a result of extensive dialogue with our international panel of clients and advisors. We are proud and very excited at the pace with which our strategy is coming to fruition, and are confident that similar success will follow with further new algorithms, due to be released in the coming months," says PathXL CEO, Des Speed.

Initially released for non-small cell lung cancer and colorectal cancer, TissueMark® now has a new high resolution algorithm for breast cancer tissue. This is the most common cancer in women worldwide, and identifying new breast cancer sub-types, by understanding their molecular abnormalities and targeting these with new drugs, is the basis of modern research. This work is being carried out in pharmaceutical organizations, diagnostic companies, and university research centers across the world.

Most research studies, however, start with the tissue sample and the pathologist, where sufficient tumor cells are necessary for analysis. But significant differences on tumor cell estimations were found to be made across both pathologists and laboratories in the estimate of tumor content in tissue sections. The reason for this lies squarely with the subjective nature of human analysis, as this work is currently done by eye, and may ultimately lead to an increase in false negative results in the subsequent molecular analysis and thus affect biomarker discovery and clinical trials.

As TissueMark® analyses the tissue samples using a powerful and reliable algorithm, this removes subjectivity from the test, making it easier to establish a solid pattern of consistent and accurate results for tumor burden and tumor boundary annotation across pathologists and laboratories.

PathXL’s software has been shown to consistently and accurately annotate tissue samples for macrodissection, and has been validated by experienced pathologists for each of the tumor types it can detect. TissueMark® estimations of percentage tumor cells against actual cell counts have shown a very strong correlation, and there is complete concordance between the results of molecular assays following TissueMark® annotation, as compared to conventional manual annotation.

The release of the breast cancer algorithm brings TissueMark® to a total number of three supported tissue types – breast, lung and colorectal – and PathXL is making significant progress on new algorithms such as prostate and melanoma, due to be released later this year.

For more information on TissueMark® and PathXL visit its dedicated page on pathxl.com/digital-pathology/tissuemark
TissueMark® is for Research Use Only. Not for use in Diagnostic Procedures.

About PathXL
Twice recipient of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award, PathXL is a global pioneer in the use of web-based solutions for digital pathology, and provides innovative software for use in drug discovery research, clinical sectors, biomarker analysis and education. TissueMark®, its latest product for Image Analysis, is fast-tracking tumor annotation and streamlining macrodissection for molecular analysis and biomarker discovery.

Press release courtesy of Online PR Media: http://bit.ly/1jdOZTh

John Durborow - Sales and Business Development Director
PathXL
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