How Philadelphia startup Proscia is bringing cancer biopsies into the digital age

The company’s Concentriq AP Dx software allows pathologists to make a primary diagnosis from an image on their computer screen, rather than a glass slide. 

The American Cancer Society predicts that new cancer cases in the U.S. will hit an all-time high this year of over 2 million. That amounts to nearly 5,500 cancer diagnoses a day. In nearly all kinds of cancer, a diagnosis—and often decisions about treatment—hinges on the laboratory analysis of an abnormal tissue sample, a.k.a. a biopsy. In the U.S. alone, there are many millions of biopsies performed annually—over 1 million each to screen for breast cancer and prostate cancer, and over 5 million for skin cancer.