ABSTRACT
The field of surgical pathology and cytology involves a cascade of operator-dependent technical, scientific and medical processes. The preparation and interpretation of surgical pathology and cytology material requires trained technical personnel, excellent technical support, skill, experience and some basic infrastructure. The quality of the images is largely dependent on the quality of the basic starting material, which is the stained slide. The essential components of any telepathology system, the microscope, a camera with software and a computer, may not available in rural areas of developing countries. The limiting step in telepathology is availability of a well-processed histology or cytology glass slide. In the developing world, the lack of infrastructure, equipment and uniform standards makes for poor pathology material or suboptimal technical material. A well-processed stained slide is the most important factor for success in telepathology. Lack of trained manpower for histopathology processing has a very negative effect on the subsequent quality of a telepathology consultation.
