ePathology

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CDC’s ePathology is an electronic platform for pathologists, laboratorians, and other medical and veterinary professionals from the United States and around the world to receive real-time consultation for pathologic diagnosis of suspected cases of infectious diseases. The ePathology platform is managed by CDC’s Infectious Diseases Pathology Branch (IDPB).

Users can electronically submit images and scanned whole-slide images for the evaluation of various infectious diseases. A response to consultation requests will be provided within 2 business days, excluding Federal holidays. This interactive and rapid exchange of information, in conjunction with the diagnostic tests available at IDPB, will enhance users’ capacity to respond to and understand infectious diseases of public health significance.

CDC’s ePathology Services:

  1. ePathology consultation assistance function, in which pathologists, clinicians and other health professionals receive expedited consultation on digital images and scanned whole-slide images submitted for review.
  2. Real-time telepathology imaging (RTIS) IDPB also welcomes external RTIS video streams of case consultations.
Please Note

CDC’s ePathology is not a substitution for diagnostic testing. ePathology can be used to provide preliminary insights into a cause of disease. Definitive diagnosis requires the submission of formalin-fixed tissue for laboratory testing by CDC’s IDPB lab.

For more Information on submission of formalin-fixed tissues see: Specimen Submission Guidelines.

IDPB does not accept submissions directly from patients. If you are a patient with a medical emergency, please consult your healthcare provider or the nearest medical facility. CDC does not provide clinical care, diagnose illness, provide treatment, prescribe medication, or refer patients to specialists.

ePathology Consultation Instructions

  • Please send your teleconsultation request to ePathology@cdc.gov. The consultation request should include the following information:
    • Your name and affiliation
    • Your email and full contact information
    • Patient age, gender
    • Patient outcome (living, deceased)
    • Type of specimen
    • Date specimen was collected, stain used, and magnification of the microscopic field captured
    • Presumed diagnosis
    • Any other pertinent data, including travel history, animal or other exposures, underlying medical conditions, immune status, length of disease course, pre or post treatment, and other related information.
  • When possible, please attach multiple digital images, including electron micrographs, and other relevant documents to the consultation email. Our e-mail system will accept e-mails only with a file size under 30 MB; therefore, please compress your images and/or documents if necessary.
  • Please state in your teleconsultation e-mail to ePathology@cdc.gov if you have files that are over 30 MB and cannot be further compressed. IDPB will provide alternative instructions on how to submit these larger images using ShareFile.
  • IDPB can receive the following image formats:
    • JPEG
    • JPG
    • JP2
    • TIFF
    • TIF
    • CWS
    • SVS
    • SCN
    • BIF (Ventana)
    • CZI (Zeiss)
    • DICOM
    • iSyntax (Philips)
    • MRXS (3D HISTECH)
    • NDPI (Hamamatsu)
    • VMS
    • Open URI
    • OMERO