The Role of Pathology in Toxicity Testing

Abstract

Sitting in judgment of their colleagues’ mistakes, anatomical pathologists have always enjoyed a privileged status in medicine. Their predominant position in clinical diagnostics, however, is progressively eroded by usurpers using advanced biochemistry, sophisticated electronics, and immunological tricks. But in drug toxicology much of the old magic of the pathologist is still preserved. He is the only one permitted to use subjective judgments, the only one to coin his own technical terms. I can label the mammary nodules induced in beagle bitches with oral contraceptives as “ductal carcinoma in situ” and scare you know what out of everybody. I can call them “cystic fibromatous hyperplasias” and make it sound innocent; or I may not want to commit myself either way and name the change a “mammary hyperplasia with squamous metaplasia and a certain potential for malignant (carcinomatous or sarcomatous) degeneration.”