CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
October 2018—Flagship Biosciences announced that its MuscleMap algorithm that supports therapeutic development for Duchenne muscular dystrophy has been validated to be as effective as manual pathology. The study was published in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine (Aeffner F, et al. Epub ahead of print Aug. 31, 2018. doi:10.5858/arpa.2017-0536-OA).
Flagship applied its proprietary technology in digital tissue image analysis to develop an immunofluorescent scanning and digital image-analysis solution that enables analysis of all muscle fibers within a biopsy section as well as provides data on each individual fiber. To validate the MuscleMap approach, the study compared high-powered microscopic field total fiber counts and dystrophin-positive fiber counts with data produced by the MuscleMap algorithm. “The authors note that this work is the first to validate immunofluorescent scanning and digital tissue image analysis workflow with the rigor required to support clinical trials,” the company reported in a press release.