De klinisch-moleculair patholoog: voorbij het beeld

Pathology has always held a key position in medical science by providing an anatomical description of diseases on which the therapeutic regimens could be based. The role of pathology in medical diagnosis is changing considerably. Three elements are being discussed: (a) to date microscopic anatomy has been important in the classification of diseases; (b) immunohistochemical colouring agents enable pathologists to visualize proteins in tissues and thus to define normal and deviant cells with great accuracy with respect to lineage derivation and differentiation stage; (c) current developments in molecular biology will have a decisive influence on the classification, diagnosis and treatment of tumours as they allow the evaluation of the function and genetic characteristics of tumour tissue. Although molecular pathology now also covers purely genetic diagnostics of isolated DNA or RNA it is expected that imaging DNA diagnostics within the tissue itself will become increasingly important