Device to help cut time to diagnose diseases

Pathological laboratories play a vital role in the healthcare industry. The practice today is of small labs collecting samples and sending them to reference labs that have a pathologist for analysis.

This is a fairly common practice since setting up a lab is a very expensive proposition and the labs are far fewer in number than clinics. What if the analysis could be done remotely?

Last metre connectivity, more like the last mile connectivity in the telecom world, could help speed up the process and give more people access to the labs. The samples collected by the small labs are examined with the device and the impressions sent back to the collection lab.

KTwo Technology Solutions, a products company, that focuses on developing products for healthcare and automotive sectors, has developed CytoSight, a device which allows a doctor to automatically identify, analyse and highlight cell images through image processing techniques.

The results can then be sent online to the target. "Such a technology would be an efficient use of affordable technology to enable tele-pathology," said Anant R Koppar, Chairman & CEO of KTwo Technology Solutions. The absence of infrastructure for collaboration between centres too leads to reduced lab efficiency.

The same would be the case with the MRI scan or a CAT scan too. The scan results can be secured the same day and there need be no delay. You are able to get the results the same day or over e-mail or over the telephone lines.

CytoSight, according to Koppar, enables tele-pathology and more complex systems for use in haematology and cancer detection.

It also has the ability to detect malarial parasite in the blood, which often fails to show up till the person gets the cold shivers.

The web-based tele-radiology system, in the first phase, is now in the learning phase and like statistics which gives greater accuracy as more number of studies are made, added Koppar.

The device allows for the CT or MRI scan image to be viewed remotely. The difference is that it can decipher any image irrespective of the manufacturer.

Over time, by studying more and more images, the device learns to detect anomalies. The device can run on Windows or Linux, said Koppar.

KTwo Technologies is planning to raise $3 million from venture capital firms in the next two months.