The range of novelties included in this special series on "Update on molecular classification and individualized treatments of genitourinary tumors" published in the journal Translational Andrology and Urology (1-8) has led us to considerations on diagnosing and treating patients with genitourinary tumors in 5 years from now.
Digital pathology (DP)This digital-based approach to histological diagnosis, also called DP, is a new approach in the morphologic analyses of glass slides either with tissue sections obtained from formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissue (FFPE) or with frozen sections. Slide scanners are designed to obtain virtual slides of entire tissue sections, i.e., whole slide image (WSI), including large format histology, from large glass slides. The whole tissue section is represented in the virtual slide (Figure 1). The advantage of the virtual slides, compared with still images, is that a the user can change magnification to zoom in and out, while looking for diagnostic features as with an optical microscope (9,10). WSI technology has attracted the greatest attention in the pathology community. DP will become commonplace in five years from now.