Pathology's Best-Kept Secret

Chief Pathologist John Cochran discusses how clinical trials offer pathologists the opportunity to work at the forefront of diagnostic discovery.

What role do pathologists play in clinical trials?

Pathologists have a variety of responsibilities, including identifying suitable patients and evaluating biomarkers expressed in tissue biopsies. From a diagnostic and prognostic viewpoint, we function similarly to community pathologists. At Q2 Solutions, we focus 60 percent of our work on oncology – but we also regularly deal with other therapeutic areas.

Clinical trial pathologists are as essential to the development of novel therapies as frontline oncologists – and, together, we help bring cutting-edge drugs to market. A striking example of this is the significant contribution clinical trial pathologists made with PD-L1 expression case review in several tumor types, which led to the approval of both immune-checkpoint inhibitors and companion diagnostics that later demonstrated major clinical success.

Continue reading for more insights from this interview originally published in The Pathologist.