Faster Differentials, Flexible Schedules: PathGroup Deploys Scopio Full-Field Peripheral Blood Smear Application

PathGroup serves as the pathology provider for more than 250 hospitals and thousands of physician groups and surgery centers. With more than 240 subspecialty expert pathologists, PathGroup is one of the largest physician-led pathology groups in the United States and provides a full array of anatomic, clinical, and molecular pathology services.

Robin Dobson, MD, FCAP, is director of hematopathology at PathGroup’s Coppell, Texas, laboratory outside Dallas. There, she and her team conduct standalone peripheral blood smear reviews as well as a full differential for every bone marrow specimen that comes into the lab.

In 2024, the Coppell lab replaced its traditional manual slide-based smear review with the Scopio platform and Full-Field Peripheral Blood Smear (FF-PBS Application). As a result of that upgrade, the lab has seen dramatic efficiency gains and new freedom for its pathologists to work remotely.

“At our organization, hematopathology and cytopathology have been the final frontiers for digitization because of the barriers to getting the 100x field for peripheral blood smears. When we learned about the Scopio platform with Full-Field 100x magnification we were very excited,” shared Dr. Dobson. “We do a full pathologic review of each smear, not just a review of the automated cell counts. With Scopio we can drive around the slide to look at the red blood cell morphology, platelets and all of the white blood cells and we have a digital equivalent to the traditional glass slide manual review,” says Dr. Dobson.

AI decision support speeds every differential

FDA-cleared and CE-marked, Scopio’s AI-powered digital morphology platform captures high-resolution images and uses an AI decision support system (DSS), enabling PathGroup pathologists to focus on critical diagnostic tasks.

“We complete manual differentials for every peripheral blood smear that comes in with a bone marrow specimen,” explains Dr. Dobson. “By automating detection and classification, the DSS improves consistency across the group of eight hematopathologists.” Crucially, the Scopio DSS gives PathGroup’s experts the final say in the differential. The pathologist can fully review the classifications the AI proposes, instantly find and reexamine any flagged cell within the full context of the slide, and reclassify cells in seconds if needed.

Presenter:
Robin Dobson, MD, FCAP
Director of Hematopathology, PathGroup