Practical approaches to reviewing and recording pathology data

Review of approaches to the recording of background lesions in toxicologic pathology studies in rats

“…Consistent recording of background data document the range of background changes and variation within a strain or colony and enables recognition over time of changes or drifts and thus any changes in this normal variation within a given colony are recognized (Scudamore, 2014).…”

“…These lexicons can be established for macroscopic and microscopic data and may be specific to an individual laboratory or contract research organization (Scudamore, 2014). These lexicons may also be part of a more widely recognized terminology allowing for easier comparison between pathology studies and reports performed in different laboratories, research institutions or diagnostic service providers (Scudamore, 2014). Although accurate pathology reporting implies that pathologists only use terms that have been agreed with other pathologists, considerable variety in terminology still exists (Shackleford et al, 2002).…”

“…Scoring methods are commonly used by toxicological pathologists (Holland, 2001) because they are easy to understand and generally quick to perform. These methods require separation of lesions into scores or grades (ordinal classes of data) and form the basis of semi-quantitative analysis (Scudamore, 2014). Grades may be numerical (0-5) or descriptive (minimal to severe) or based on proportion of tissue affected (Scudamore, 2014).…”

“…These methods require separation of lesions into scores or grades (ordinal classes of data) and form the basis of semi-quantitative analysis (Scudamore, 2014). Grades may be numerical (0-5) or descriptive (minimal to severe) or based on proportion of tissue affected (Scudamore, 2014). Scoring tissues can be a useful tool for evaluating research tissues and toxicity studies however pathologists need to be aware of pitfalls involved in concepts such as diagnostic drift, blind reading and tissue sampling.…”

“…Blind reading of slides is also administratively burdensome and increases the cost, time and likelihood of errors when coding and decoding slides (Neef et al, 2012). Unless there is a good scientific reason, a blind review should not normally be recommended as it is unlikely to provide the best possible result (Scudamore, 2014).…”