[Experiences with telepathology in northern Afghanistan : A 10-year success story].

Afghanistan is in a military conflict lasting more than 20 years and according to recent political development, in a downhill spiral towards a failed society. This scenario faces the question of the usefulness of international medical aid, especially morphological diagnostics in crisis situations. On the basis of ten years of experience from a telemedicine project, need, feasibility and results in Afghanistan will be discussed.

Experience with telepathology in combination with diagnostic assistance systems in countries with restricted resources.

Introduction: We describe the use of telepathology in countries with restricted resources using two diagnosis assistance systems (Isabel and Memem7) in addition to the diagnoses made by experts in pathology via the iPath-Network.

Methods: A total of 156 cases, largely from Afghanistan, were analysed; 18 cases had to be excluded because of poor image quality.

Results: Of the remaining 138 cases (100%), a responsible physician provided a tentative diagnosis for 61.