Patient Safety Has High Profile at Pathology Congress

The 22nd Annual European Congress of Pathology took place in Florence, Italy from September 4-9, 2009. Almost all sessions dealt with clinical services and advances in diagnostic technologies for pathologists and histologists. Patient safety was a common theme of nearly all presentations.

A seminar was devoted to patient safety and diagnostic accuracy. The moderator of the session was Dr. Paolo Dei Tos, M.D., Chairman, Department of Pathology at Treviso Regional Hospital in (Italy).

Bent Ejlertsen, M.D., Ph.D., of the Department of Oncology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, (Denmark) and colleagues reported on their study of the TOP2A marker. Their goal is to learn how to use this biomarker for both prognostic and predictive evaluations to identify which breast cancer patients would benefit from therapy with adjuvant anthracyclines. Dr. Ejlertsen stressed that improved patient safety would result from more standardized processing and diagnosis when working with the TOP2A marker.

Professor Giuseppe Viale, M.D., of the University of Milan School of Medicine and European Institute of Oncology in (Italy) emphasized the importance of achieving improved standardization for estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR) assays in breast cancer. Prof. Viale stated that assessment of hormone receptor status is "the first and most important clue” in tailoring treatment of a breast cancer patient. He added that it is important to avoid false-positive results for this testing because Tamoxifen is detrimental for patients with nonendocrine-responsive tumors. Tamoxifen is a selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERM) used for breast cancer treatment.

Healthcare systems are actively working to reduce medical errors. Pathologists at the European Congress of Pathology demonstrated how patient safety has become an important international trend.

Related Links:
European Congress of Pathology
Treviso Regional Hospital
Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital
University of Milan School of Medicine and European Institute of Oncology