FDA Guidance for WSI

ON BEHALF OF THE DIGITAL PATHOLOGY ASSOCIATION 

 

PUBLIC STATEMENT:

 

On April 20, 2016, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the availability of a guidance entitled “Technical Performance Assessment of Digital Pathology Whole Slide Imaging Devices”. This guidance provides industry and Agency staff with recommendations regarding the technical performance assessment data that should be submitted for regulatory evaluation of a digital whole slide imaging (WSI) system.

 

The last decade has seen significant technology advances in the evolution of WSI with the ability to rapidly digitize large numbers of slides automatically and at high resolution. Many applications unique to digital pathology have emerged and, as a result, WSI is increasingly being used in both clinical and research areas. 

 

The Digital Pathology Association (DPA) commends the FDA for the development and release of this guidance and for recognizing the significance of this breakthrough technology by taking this important step as well as for including many of the detailed and specific comments related to the content of the draft guidance the DPA submitted to the FDA during the specified comment period.The guidance establishes an approach for characterizing the technical aspects that are relevant to WSI performance for their intended use and that are important in determining their safety and effectiveness. This guidance helped to clarify the agency’s expectations for WSI regulatory submissions, enabling increased access and wide scale adoption of Digital Pathology for clinical use in the US. 

 

The guidance describes how manufacturers should characterize their WSI systems for clinical use. This is a very cohesive and comprehensive view of all of the components of digital pathology systems, both at the component and systems levels. The document lists the components of a whole slide imaging system and goes on to describe each of the components, including slide feeder, light source, imaging optics, mechanical scanner movement, digital imaging sensor, image processing software, scanning methods, image file formats, image review manipulation software, computer hardware, and displays. Another important aspect of the guidance is the discussion surrounding a framework of a typical system-level test and the items that a usability validation test report should include. The guidance is detailed in listing several critical line items that the vendors should consider when providing data for regulatory evaluation of digital WSI systems. The approach that FDA taking is consistent with what has been done in other industries, including leveraging existing standards called out in the  guidance. It is evident from this document that FDA has learned much about digital pathology technology over the past several years.

 

Many manufacturers have been working with the FDA over the last several years on the issues outlined in the guidance document.  DPA commends all the vendors who have met with the FDA and worked collaboratively toward a mutual understanding of the technological aspects that are important to achieving clinical safety and effectiveness of WSI and improved patient care.  While this type of characterization could result in overhead to manufacturers that are seeking FDA clearance or approval, at least we can be assured that the same standards will be applied to all applicants.  As a result of the guidance, there exists a clearer set of expectations.