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I did something I've never done before for this episode — I went live from the middle of a national park. This is DigiPath Digest #42, broadcasting from the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado via Starlink from my family road trip. Yes, it actually worked. And so did the papers.

This episode covers four papers that all ask the same uncomfortable question from different angles: how close is AI to being genuinely useful in real pathology practice — and what's still standing in the way? From LLMs interpreting cervical Pap smears, to AI guiding breast cancer treatment decisions from a simple H&E slide, to a practical roadmap for bringing generative AI into oncology workflows — this one covers a lot of ground.

I also introduced something new: my AI-powered paper summary podcast subscription. For $7 a month, AI hosts summarize digital pathology literature in a journal-club style so you can stay current without spending hours reading abstracts. I walk through how it works and why I built it.

What we cover:

• [00:00] Going live from the wilderness — Starlink, sand dunes, and a very cold morning
• [02:01] How I use AI-generated audio summaries to prep for each DigiPath Digest
• [03:19] Paper 1: Can LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini interpret cervical cytology? Spoiler: ~47–48% exact concordance — promising, but not there yet
• [10:23] Bonus: My new AI-powered paper summary subscription — $7/month, journal-club style
• [14:05] Paper 2: AI in oral oncology — CNNs for early lesion detection, multimodal prognostics, and the real barriers still blocking clinical adoption
• [20:28] Paper 3: Generative AI in oncology — from chat tools to agentic EHR-integrated assistants, and why augmentation is the goal, not automation
• [25:35] Paper 4: Computational pathology in breast cancer — predicting BRCA1/2, HER2, Oncotype DX, and treatment response from standard H&E slides
• [31:39] Final thought: the floor just got raised for all of us — how I think about new technology in pathology

Resources & Links:

• Paper 1 – LLMs & Cervical Cytology (PubMed): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41931983/
• Paper 2 – AI in Oral Oncology (PubMed): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41930554/
• Paper 3 – Generative AI in Oncology Practice (PubMed): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41930309/
• Paper 4 – AI & Digital Pathology in Breast Cancer (PubMed): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41930306/
• Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/O2hOU4gM0Bk?si=oH8iJ8HiBb29USG3
• Digital Pathology Place: https://www.digitalpathologyplace.com

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