Advances in the coordinated development of digital cytopathology testing equipment and intelligent interpretation systems

Junnan Wang

Qianyao Lin

Yiyi Fu

Jianxiong Guan

Hongtao Li

Jingjing Fan

Xiaofan Deng

Shiqi Liu

Fa Zhang

Dongxu Zhang

1,*

Affiliation +

*Correspondence to: Dongxu Zhang,School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, Fujian, China. E-mail: zhangdongxu@xmu.edu.cn

Comput Biomed. 2026;1:202626. 10.70401/cbm.2026.0026

Received: August 14, 2026Accepted: October 30, 2026Published: October 30, 2026

This manuscript is made available in its unedited form to allow early access to the reported findings. Further editing will be completed before final publication. As such, the content may include errors, and standard legal disclaimers are applicable.

Abstract

Digital cytopathology links specimen preparation, staining, imaging, quality control, and artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted interpretation. This narrative review compares how equipment conditions, annotation levels, and aggregation mechanisms affect model performance and its clinical interpretation. Recent studies cover cervical screening as well as thyroid, urinary, pancreatic, and effusion cytology, but differences in specimen types, reference standards, and validation designs limit direct comparisons. We explain detection and segmentation, weakly supervised aggregation, self-supervised adaptation, and multimodal fusion, distinguishing technical endpoints from reader performance and patient benefit. Preparation-dependent morphology, sparse abnormal cells, overlapping groups, and focal-plane selection constrain transfer between laboratories. An equipment–quality control–AI–human review framework can organize error-specific corrective actions, but its overall safety and cost-effectiveness require prospective evaluation. Deployment must match the validated specimen, population, and assistive or autonomous role.

Keywords

Cytopathology testing equipment, digital cytopathology, artificial intelligence, AI-assisted interpretation, human-AI collaboration

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Wang J, Lin Q, Fu Y, Guan J, Li H, Fan J, et al. Advances in the coordinated development of digital cytopathology testing equipment and intelligent interpretation systems. Comput Biomed. 2026;1:202626. https://doi.org/10.70401/cbm.2026.0026

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Computational Biomedicine

Advances in the coordinated development of digital cytopathology testing equipment and intelligent interpretation systems

Junnan Wang

Qianyao Lin

Yiyi Fu

Jianxiong Guan

Hongtao Li

Jingjing Fan

Xiaofan Deng

Shiqi Liu

Fa Zhang

Dongxu Zhang

Abstract

Keywords

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Computational Biomedicine

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Computational Biomedicine

Advances in the coordinated development of digital cytopathology testing equipment and intelligent interpretation systems

Junnan Wang

Qianyao Lin

Yiyi Fu

Jianxiong Guan

Hongtao Li

Jingjing Fan

Xiaofan Deng

Shiqi Liu

Fa Zhang

Dongxu Zhang

Abstract

Keywords

References

Copyright

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