Tele-pathology deals with the transmission of pathology images for diagnostic, research and academic purposes. In most of the instances the images are transmitted along with textual meta data such as patient information and slide characteristics. Securing both, images and textual meta data becomes essential to protect the privacy and integrity of the tele-pathology system. This paper introduces a new image security system which has the benefits of both image steganography and image cryptography. It has suitable application in Tele-pathology for securing pathology images and patient records. The proposed image steganography technique conceals the patients textual meta data in the corresponding pathology images using Integer Wavelet Transform (IWT) and Elementary Cellular Automata (ECA). This technique hides the information without distorting the original image quality. The high Peak-Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) values indicate the imperceptibility of this technique. This stego-image is further encrypted using a new image encryption scheme based on Cellular Automata, binary word rotations and Permutation-Diffusion architecture. In the permutation phase, Cellular Automata is utilized to confuse the stegoimage and in the diffusion phase, we employ an invertible function based on binary word rotations and Exclusive-OR operation to obtain an efficient and secure cryptosystem. The assessment of this encryption scheme exhibits high secure diffusion process, computational efficiency and ease of implementation. Thus the combined effect of this image steganography-cryptography system provides security for both the pathology images and the accompanying textual meta data. © 2017 International Journal of Imaging and Robotics.