Molecular pathology: role in improving patient outcome: Overview.

Abstract

F February 26 through February 28, 1999, the College of American Pathologists held a conference in Bethesda, Md, on the role of molecular pathology in improving patient outcomes. The following articles have resulted from that conference. Our conclusion from that conference and the resulting articles is that molecular pathology plays a significant role in improving patient outcome. Indeed, there can be little argument with the impression that the field of molecular pathology has matured dramatically since the last College of American Pathologists Molecular Pathology Conference, held in August 1992.1 That conference focused mainly on the burgeoning new techniques and potential promise of the field, but few data had yet been accrued in actual practice to draw many conclusions regarding clinical outcomes at that time. Now, in 1999, the profile and impact of the field are quite different. Molecular diagnostic techniques are in routine use in most major medical centers and numerous commercial laboratories, the accelerated success of the Human Genome Project has produced applications hardly conceivable a few years ago, a professional society devoted solely to this discipline has been born (the Association for Molecular Pathology), a new board certification examination in molecular genetic pathology (to be administered jointly by the American Board of Pathology and the American Board of Medical Genetics) has been approved, and the College of American Pathologists itself has devoted increasing resources to the promotion of quality assurance and appropriate utilization of these high-complexity tests. As a further reflection of the impact of the field, its regulatory and ethical aspects have moved into the sometimes unpredictable domain of public discourse, and the College of American Pathologists, through its Governmental and Professional Affairs Office in Washington, DC, and several committees (spearheaded by the sponsoring committee of this conference, the Molecular Pathology Resource Committee), has assumed a leadership role in opposing particularly restrictive policies and legislative ini-