If you have read the novel "Final Diagnosis" by Canadian author Arthur Hailey, you must remember this sentence: "When you walk into a hospital, although you may not meet him, or even be aware of his existence, his influence on you is greater than that of any other department's doctors."

This sentence refers to the pathologist.

Pathology, an abbreviation for "the principles of disease," is a discipline that studies the causes, mechanisms, morphological structure, and metabolic changes of human diseases. It has always been called the "gold standard" for disease diagnosis and treatment. To date, pathology remains the most reliable diagnosis in the medical field, with an authority that no other examination can temporarily replace.

For instance, in the qualitative diagnosis of tumors, pathological diagnosis is the most central and decisive step. The surgeons that patients usually see can only rely more on technologies and experience such as X-rays, MRI, and CT to know where the tumor is, how big it is, and what it might be.

However, only the pathologist can truly determine whether the tumor is benign? Where is the primary focus? Is it necessary to remove it? How much scope needs to be removed? Is further radiotherapy required? And so on, all these depend on the pathologist to unravel the mysteries from the sections of the diseased tissue, to make a final determination.

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A thin pathological report is more like a heavy "life sentence," of extraordinary significance.

Therefore, pathology is not only a link between basic medicine and clinical medicine but also a bridge that spans joy and sorrow, identifying life and death.

Exploring the truth in the "microscopic world"

Digital exploration at the Southwest Hospital

Pathological work seems simple but is not simple.A piece of living tissue taken from a patient, from sampling, embedding, to slide preparation, staining, and finally to analysis and diagnosis, all require meticulous attention and caution at every step.

In the face of the towering mountain of life, every micron of cutting must be just right, every judgment of a section must be precise and error-free, and every piece of evidence must be indisputably locked down.

The Southwest Hospital from Jiangcheng Chongqing, a pioneer in the field of pathology in China, has been continuously exploring for many years.

"Pathology is the foundation of medicine; without pathology, there would be no modern medicine. Our pathological work is like exploring in the dark at night; what is on both sides of the road and what lies ahead need to be clearly explained," said Mr. Bian Xiuwu, the head of the pathology department of Southwest Hospital and the only academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the field of pathology in our country.

After 80 years of baptism, the pathology department of Southwest Hospital has grown into one of the top pathology departments in China, with an annual diagnosis volume of more than 100,000 cases. At the same time, Southwest Hospital is also the first hospital in the country to carry out clinical pathology teaching and research, providing a batch after batch of professional talents for the development of pathology in China.

However, even such an important discipline and department are now troubled by some problems.

First, it is difficult to make judgments. More and more studies have shown that for the same section observed with a microscope by the naked eye, different pathologists will show significant differences under the influence of equipment, lighting, fatigue, etc. - this is an even more fatal hidden danger under the increasingly explosive pathological examination business.

Second, it is difficult to manage. The traditional physical glass slides piled up like a mountain are prone to discoloration under the retention cycle of 35-40 years, and the traditional method of handwritten labels makes it basically impossible to trace and query, which also greatly limits the tracking of samples and clinical scientific research.

Finally, it is difficult to share. The current situation of uneven distribution of medical resources still exists, and most grassroots hospitals in cities and counties lack efficient and convenient shared remote diagnosis and treatment capabilities, making it extremely difficult to achieve timely diagnosis. "In the past, some patients lay on the operating table, and the excised pathological tissue was sent to our hospital for pathological examination by a special car, and then the surgical plan was decided. This process also takes at least one or two hours."

The traditional pathology department urgently needs a digital transformation."In the future of pathology, we hope to digitize and standardize the wisdom of our predecessors more extensively," said Academician Bian Xiuwu. "I also fantasize that one day, our pathologists can complete diagnoses from the comfort of their homes, on airplanes, or on high-speed trains, anytime and anywhere. The digitized pathology scanned can be compared with diseases worldwide, leading to an almost perfect diagnosis."

Now, the dream has become a reality. With the support of Huawei's OceanStor Pacific distributed storage, the Southwest Hospital, in the spirit of a pioneering explorer, has built a fully digital pathology department. The pathological information of diseases, after scanning, is stored and retrieved in the form of digital sections, with all diagnoses completed in front of screens.

A technological void has been filled, and the sails of an industry have been raised.

In the microscopic world, the energy of digitization is vibrant within a small space, reflecting a more vibrant color of life.

Fully Digital Pathology

"Deep Roots" for "Lush Leaves"

The level of digitalization in pathology has always determined the ceiling for the future development of a hospital, but the process of digitization is destined to be anything but smooth.

Typically, the size of a digital pathology file is as high as 3GB, more than 10 times that of traditional PACS images—that is to say, a section the size of a fingernail is nearly equivalent to a high-definition movie.

According to Academician Bian, the Southwest Hospital generates over 2,000 sections daily, reaching up to 800,000 sections annually, with each section requiring at least 2PB of data and growing at an annual rate of 20%.Large, is an imminent challenge.

Such a vast amount of data is seriously slowing down the speed of reviewing slices. It takes doctors at least half a minute to open a digital slice file each time, and mosaics and stutters often occur during switching and loading, causing anxiety but there is nothing that can be done. At the same time, the massive expansion of valuable pathological data also increases the challenge of archiving space and remote sharing, and the construction of machine rooms and the sinking of medical resources are also facing obstacles - traditional data storage is already struggling to bear the burden.

To decipher the profound and complicated pathological code, the Southwest Hospital needs a powerful data storage as a support. With the help of Huawei, a series of challenges have been resolved:

Huawei's OceanStor Pacific distributed storage is deeply rooted in the medical pathology industry, understanding the reading and writing process of pathological data and completing optimization and adaptation, providing strong mixed load throughput performance. After testing, without upgrading the network and terminal devices, it can meet the concurrent review needs of up to 400 digital slices in the hospital within one second.

In addition to this miraculous blink of an eye, Huawei also provides the industry's first pathological file compression algorithm, high-density hardware design, intelligent grading and multi-protocol intercommunication capabilities, helping the pathology department of Southwest Hospital to reduce the storage cost and machine room space by 50%, optimize the management of the entire life cycle of data, make remote multi-party consultations of internet medical care a reality, and also make the integration construction of medical multi-image platforms such as digital pathology, PACS imaging, and gene sequencing & spatiotemporal molecular analysis possible.

Behind the flickering pathological pictures is the strong Huawei OceanStor Pacific distributed storage, which has chewed one after another "hard bone" that comes with "big". On the vast sea of digital evolution of China's pathology industry, a bright dawn has come.

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There is a point of light, there is a point of brightness. Under the shackles, the "leaf prosperity" of the pathology industry's comprehensive digitalization is inseparable from the "deep roots" of advanced data infrastructure.

The surging medical digitalization is already a trend, how to provide high-quality medical services for more people under limited conditions, is the dream of all doctors and patients, and is also the dream of technology. Huawei data storage deeply integrates technology with medical scene applications, always with a heart of compassion for the world and endless innovation, moving forward with the entire industry.

Storage power can not only accommodate the vastness of the scientific world, but also supports the digital base of people's welfare and the world's fireworks. The deep unknown digital world has been slowly lit up.