The College of American Pathologists (CAP), the world's largest organization of board-certified pathologists, has been awarded two grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The funding, totaling more than $1.25 million, will be used to improve the adoption of evidence-based laboratory testing guidelines and to standardize reporting of biomarker test results to cancer registries. The grant dollars will be used over a five-year period.
"Patients and physicians rely on accurate and consistent test results to guide treatment decisions," said Charles Roussel, chief executive officer for the College of American Pathologists. "Our goal is to help improve patient care through the delivery of standardized laboratory testing and reporting. The CDC funding will enable us to achieve this goal on behalf of patients, pathologists, and laboratory and health care professionals nationwide."
Adoption of Guidelines Leads to Improved Patient Care
The CAP develops evidence-based guidelines and consensus recommendations to standardize laboratory practices among the nation's medical laboratories. To date, the CAP has released six evidence-based guidelines, including those related to biomarker testing for breast and lung cancer, as well as validation of immunohistochemical assays and whole slide imaging.
"By implementing guidelines into clinical practice, hospitals and patients can be assured that the laboratory is following consistent procedures based on scientific evidence and expert consensus opinion," said Raouf Nakhleh, MD, FCAP, a pathologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., and lead on the CAP's CDC project to improve the impact of laboratory practice guidelines. "With the CDC grant, we hope to increase awareness for and adoption of the published guidelines, as well as guidelines in development."
Streamlined Cancer Biomarker Reporting Furthers Understanding
Through the CDC grant, the CAP, along with other health care organizations, is developing a standardized approach to streamline how cancer biomarker data is collected and recorded. Collection of this data enables public health professionals to better understand cancer trends and identify needs across the nation.
"Tumor biomarkers are used to help detect, diagnose, and determine optimal treatment strategies for many types of cancer," said Patrick L. Fitzgibbons, MD, FCAP, a pathologist at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif., and CAP member who is involved in the CAP's CDC project on cancer biomarker data reporting. "The CDC grant will enable us to develop and maintain standards and best practices for reporting cancer biomarker test results to cancer registries. Our long-term goal is to standardize the reporting of cancer biomarker data and eliminate the need for manual abstraction of biomarker data, reducing errors and costs and, ultimately, improving patient care."
Role of the Pathologist
Sometimes called the "doctor's doctor," pathologists are physicians who use laboratory medicine to examine cells, tissues, and body fluids to identify and diagnose disease. They work with other physicians on the patient care team to guide treatment for medical conditions, from diabetes to cancer. As the physicians supervising the core laboratory processes and clinical information exchange central to hospitals and health care systems, pathologists are leaders in health care informatics, dedicated to improving communication of clinical data to health care providers and patients.
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