PathXchange (Px) Launches Px Athena – an eLearning Module for Pathologists New Module Completes Research and Education Offerings from Px
Sunnyvale, CA, March 23, 2010
PathXchange (Px), a global online pathology community, today announced the launch of Px Athena, an eLearning management system with Web 2.0 capabilities. Px Athena utilizes digital pathology technologies to provide a comprehensive online research and education solution to the academic pathology communities.
“As pathology transitions to a digital environment, existing tools and techniques for pathology education such as textbooks, multi-headed scopes, slide-set based learning should be updated to meet the needs of the digital era,” said Steven H. Hinrichs, M.D., chair of the Department of Pathology/Microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “PathXchange Athena enables pathology educators to be more efficient and effective in their teaching. The digital tools enable the current generation of technology savvy students to learn pathology in a manner consistent with university teaching.”
Px Athena allows educators to create and host interactive online courses and provides students instant access to digital teaching sets. Px Athena combines several elements, including course galleries, self-assessments, and interactive teaching tools to promote community based learning, continued medical education, knowledge sharing and professional networking.
“The PathXchange community has grown to include 4,000 members from 60 countries in nine months since its inception,” said Mohan Uttarwar, president of PathXchange. “Px has become the largest global online pathology community with the largest user-contributed digital case library. We are positive that digital technology will transform pathology research and education just like it did in radiology.”
In addition to their education offerings, PathXchange also enables global collaboration for research applications. PathXchange was recently used to facilitate an international inter-observer concordance study on autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP). The study, which was led by Dr. Lizhi Zhang, assistant professor of anatomic pathology at Mayo Clinic; Dr. Suresh Chari, professor of medicine and gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic, and Dr. Thomas Smyrk, associate professor of pathology at the Mayo Clinic, enabled researchers to conduct a research study with global participants and collect and analyze results in nine weeks.
“More than a dozen pathologists from around the world logged on to PathXchange to review 40 AIP cases in the hopes to arrive at consensus based on their current knowledge of AIP,” said Dr. Zhang.
“PathXchange opens doors to an unprecedented level of international collaboration on research studies,” said Tao Liang, Ph.D., director of PathXchange. “Export of human tissue is a major logistical challenge in international research studies. The inter-observer concordance study on AIP is an excellent example of how such studies can be done in weeks as opposed to months, and at a fraction of the cost.”
Px Athena will be available to members of PathXchange.org free of charge. Custom hosted Px Athena is available for a charge. Visitors at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) 2010 Annual Meeting can view a demo of Px Athena at Booth 101. The conference will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., between March 22-24, 2010.
About PathXchange
PathXchange is a vendor-neutral, not-for-profit Web site for the global pathology community, to promote digital pathology. PathXchange brings the field of pathology into the digital age with Web 2.0 features designed to promote the exchange of pathological cases, ideas, knowledge, information, products, and services. PathXchange is sponsored by BioImagene, a leader in providing innovative digital pathology solutions for clinical diagnostics and drug discovery.
