독성병리 Peer Review의 중요성과 실제적 접근방법

Evaluation of toxicological pathology is to some extend subjective judgments by pathologist and the accuracy of pathologist’s works is based on the individual training and experiences. It has been required to establish a peer review system for toxicologic pathology and these review system has been employed by various practice of toxicological pathology. It would be pointed out that the possible causes of drifts in pathology are due to 1) lack of knowledge or experience of individual pathologists, 2) poorly maintained consistence of grading among animals in study, 3) different interpretation of findings between pathologists, or 4) pathology data processing. Example cases of diagnostic errors and current practice of peer review including tissue selection criteria, documentation and problem resolution for short-term and carcinogenicity studies were introduced. For sound regulatory system and high integrity of practice in toxicological pathology, current approaches of peer review system were reviewed.