Virtual Cases: A new tool in pathology

Information Technology in Medicine is growing more and more also in the field of Pathology. in the last years, robotic microscopy and digital imaging have become main ingredients for automated systems in Pathology. Digitalization of entire glass slides is now a peculiar characteristic of several robotized system and constitues the basis of different applications in Pathology research for Medical Informatics Departments as well as for Microsystems Companies. Virtual cases (VCs) or virtual slides (VS) are easily constructed through completely automated procedures: they are collections of digital images entirely representing a histological slide at all magnifications, offering various advantages arising from their digital nature. Additional information and/or multimedia data could be added to complete the digital case. Digital image processing can be performed during VC construction or `a posteriori`, retrieving digital images from a structured database