Imaging file management to support international telepathology.

Background: Telepathology practice across international borders has become increasingly popular. Our telepathology consultation service with a laboratory in China was hampered by latency issues when viewing whole slide images.

Objective: The aim was to explore data transfer solutions to improve the viewing experience of digital consult cases.

Methods: Whole slide image files residing on a server in China were transferred to our data center in the USA using an open source product (Fast Data Transfer). A faster more automated commercial high speed file transfer software solution (Aspera) was also tested.

Results: Transferring files with the open source product provided transfer speeds of 2-3 Mbps, but suffered from intermittent dropped connections. Employing commercial software permitted more reliable transmission of digital files with 75-100 Mbps transfer speeds.

Conclusions: Successful global telepathology requires dedicated image management. Transfer of files to local servers by employing high speed data transfer tools helped overcome network latency issues, improved the overall turn-around time of digital consultations, and enhanced the viewing experience for end-user digital consultants.