Cancer Pathology: Are Lab Tests Always Right?
The Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog says that cancer lab tests “aren’t always right.” They report on reports issued by two professional societies that point out that as many as 20% of a certain kind of test are inaccurate. According to the Health Blog the problem is the tests “aren’t black and white, and rely on a pathologist’s judgment.”
Now, judgment is a critical factor in most everything in medicine, but perhaps nowhere else are the consequences of incorrect judgment so serious as in pathology. As Dr. William Osler famously observed: “As is your pathology, so goes your clinical practice.” But how widespread is this problem? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*