Digital diagnostic cytopathology: has the pandemic brought us closer?

: The Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a powerful change driver in the field of pathology and has had relevant consequences on the practice of cytopathology, in terms of changes in workload, rates of malignancy, and performance of cytology. At the same time, regulatory authorities have relaxed their requirements for the deployment of digital pathology for remote diagnostic reporting. However, most of these improvements concerned digital histopathology. Data from literature search show that experiences in digital cytopathology during the pandemic concerned mainly educational and academic activities. From a broader point of view, when searching for all published literature on digital pathology, only a minority of papers deal with cytopathology, but a noticeable increase in publications has been seen in the last ten years, with a continuous trend toward this increase with a maximum of papers in 2021. Indeed, the pandemic has led to greater awareness of the opportunity of digital for cytopathology as well.