ABSTRACT

Pathology is the medical discipline that studies the nature of diseases, especially the changes in body tissues and organs to determine their pathogenesis and consequences. Clinical pathology is a branch of pathology that uses laboratory methods to characterize diseases by analyzing body uids. Pathologists typically have a medical or veterinary medical background with an understanding of basic biochemistry, physiologic processes, familiarity with diseases, and their impact on the subject. A pathologist studies naturally occurring diseases or changes produced in experimental models of diseases. Toxicologic pathologists (in the context of this paper) in turn deal with characterizing the toxicity to organisms when exposed to chemical or biological agents intentionally, such as a drug for medical purposes, or unintentionally, such as through environmental exposure. This review will focus on the practice of toxicological pathology in the context of intentional exposure under controlled laboratory conditions. In this circumstance, the toxicologic pathologist needs to be able to accurately describe the produced effects, understand the pathogenesis of the observed ndings, and understand the biologic signicance produced by the test article in nonclinical studies. Additionally, the pathologist needs to draw conclusions about the relevance of the nonclinical ndings for human relevance and, in most cases, the potential risks associated with the controlled clinical use of the test article.