Targeting cancer treatment: the challenge of anatomical pathology to the analytical chemist

Anatomical pathology involves the scrutiny of specimens of human tissue for the diagnosis of disease. Included in this field is cytopathology which addresses the evaluation of small groups of cells. Doug Demetrick of the Department of Pathology of the University of Calgary argues that analytical chemistry has had minimal impact in such medical diagnostic endeavours, unlike the situation for hematology, microbiology and molecular genetics. Furthermore, it is stressed that new strategies are required for sample handling, increasing the cost effectiveness of instrumentation, and decreasing the subjectiveness of data processing. In tandem with drug development, it is more important to predict the response of disease to treatment than to concentrate on new methods for diagnosis.