Application of Pathology in Safety Assessment

Pathological investigations are a cornerstone for the assessment of the general toxicity of a compound, and postmortem examinations are the endpoint in lifetime rodent bioassays (carcinogenicity studies) (1). Pathology has also become increasingly important for research support (2-5), and histopathological examinations are performed for the clarification of certain macroscopic findings in reproductive toxicology studies (not covered in this chapter) (6).