Adjunctive use of WATS3D helps overcome sampling error that is inherent in the Seattle protocol
WATS3D provides physicians with a more effective endoscopic method of sampling tissue from the esophagus. It allows:
Sampling of much more at-risk mucosa, which reduces sampling error
Acquisition of deep mucosal tissue which is the location where pre-cancer (dysplasia) develops initially.
Limitations of the Seattle protocol:
96% of the endoscopically suspect area remains completely unsampled
Significant sampling error and false negative results
Poor agreement rate among pathologists in diagnosing dysplasia
Time-consuming and labor intensive
With WATS3D, areas identified by the neural network as the most likely to be dysplastic, pathologists are able to quickly identify and grade dysplasia in higher percentage of positive cases and with far greater diagnostic accuracy.
Traditional esophageal histopathology on forceps biopsy specimens are well-known to suffer from high interobserver variability and high miss rates of dysplasia and cancer.
WATS3D pathologists gathers information from both the 3D images as well as the cytology specimens using histocytology techniques to make more accurate diagnoses, and genetic testing allows pathologists to consistently make a diagnosis based on the most advanced science available.