Transcription

• Dr. Jim Zhai

  We cannot allow caution to become hesitation. Our plans do not have to be perfect. We just have to move and be bold.

• Elizabeth McMahon

  The CAP's 2025 Annual Report marks a membership milestone, plus a Breast Pathology Mock Tumor Board where pathologists are in the driver's seat. These stories and more next. This is Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. It's Thursday, May 7th. The CAP released its 2025 annual report this week showing a growing membership base, expanded programming, and strong lab quality and oversight programs. For the first time, the CAP grew to more than 20,000 members, a milestone that CAP President Dr. Jim Zhai says demands a forward-thinking approach.

• Dr. Jim Zhai

  We launched the membership era, personalizing how we serve you and asking a simple question, what do our members want? And we listened, but we must also face the challenges ahead. Health care is changing rapidly. Costs are rising. Laboratories are consolidating as... Hospitals merge. What worked in the past will not be enough for the future. So, we must evolve. We must innovate.

• Elizabeth McMahon

  The annual report showed solid growth in two key areas, laboratory accreditation and proficiency testing, and external quality assessment programs. The CAP released 21 new assessment programs and accredited 8,400 laboratories worldwide. Members also used their voices to shape policy, securing a win for access to timely diagnostic testing, among other achievements. Dr. Zhai emphasized that the CAP is ready to meet rapidly evolving opportunities in health care, including integrating AI into laboratory medicine, inspections, and proficiency testing. Go to the About section on the CAP homepage to find the 2025 Annual Report. A breast cancer pathology report provides a crucial cornerstone for diagnosis and treatment. But what happens after the report leaves the lab requires a team effort involving partners in surgery, medical and radiation oncology, and radiology. On May 20th, the CAP's new multidisciplinary breast pathology mock tumor board will put pathologists into direct discussion with those partners.

• Dr. Bradley Turner

  Often during tumor boards, we are... Presenting information and the perspective of the tumor board is seen from the surgeon's perspective or from the medical oncologist's perspective. But this would be an opportunity to present cases where we might have questions as pathologists about why surgery is doing something, why medical oncology is doing something in a particular way.

• Elizabeth McMahon

  That's Dr. Bradley Turner, a tumor board faculty member and professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He says that during the live-streamed webinar, pathologists will present six challenging cases, followed by discussion among subspecialists on treatment approaches. There will also be lots of Q&A with attendees. Dr. Turner says pathologists at all career stages can hear useful perspectives, especially in cases where there's uncertainty. He cites ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, versus atypical ductal hyperplasia, or ADH, as examples.

• Dr. Bradley Turner

  There are borderline cases where we may not be quite sure whether we want to call it DCIS or ADH. And it may be important to the clinician to know about this uncertainty because if we call it DCIS, it potentially may mean radiation or more surgery. If we call it ADH, it may mean nothing, no further treatment. So even though we may be unsure, Because of, you know, borderline cases, it may be important for the clinician to know that, and it may be important for the pathologist to understand the clinician's perspective before we make the diagnosis.

• Elizabeth McMahon

  Register for the Mock Tumor Board and learn more about the available CME credits at the link on the CAP homepage. Laboratories worldwide rely on the CAP's Electronic Cancer Reporting Protocols, or ECP, to ensure patient data is standardized and usable by different medical record systems. Integrated cancer data drives smarter clinical decisions and better patient outcomes. ECP's role in reshaping patient care and research will be the focus of a CAP-led panel at the Association for Pathology Informatics Summit running May 18th through 21st in Minneapolis. Dr. Mary Edgerton, a professor at the University of Nebraska and a longtime leader in pathology information science, is moderating the session. She says ECP is helping cancer teams work faster and smarter. She uses the once slow, paper-heavy decision-making process about lymph node removal in breast cancer patients as an example.

• Dr. Mary Edgerton

  We don't have to go record by record, person by person, and read through that pathology record and the second pathology record and put that data together. And let me tell you, that is very time-consuming. We can actually just extract this data as long as it's put in carefully.

• Elizabeth McMahon

  Dr. Edgerton says collecting data that's standardized and usable by different IT systems is critical as AI makes its way into the field. She hopes the hour discussion inspires pathologists about the future.

• Dr. Mary Edgerton

  I'd like to see them go back and tell their pathologists, this is why you're doing it, because this is the progress that we have made. This is where we're standing and being able to look at something and say something. And this is what we're going to be finding out in the future. And you are a part of it by adhering to these standards. and helping us collect this data.

• Elizabeth McMahon

  Find details about attending the Association for Pathology Informatics Summit this month in the show notes. The CAP will host its own Cancer Data Summit at CAP26 at the Wynn Las Vegas in October. And finally, the New York Times this week spotlights the evolving role of medical examiners, some of whom are finding themselves on the front lines of the synthetic opioid epidemic. The story follows the work of the chief medical examiner in Knoxville, Tennessee. The city has become a national hotspot for cyclorphine, a rare and lethal synthetic opioid originating in China that has been detected in at least 14 states. Since the early 2000s, the opioid epidemic has expanded in Knoxville. That has plunged Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan's office more deeply into toxicology and partnerships with advanced forensic testing labs. Her office has also worked more closely with public health agencies and street outreach groups. Forensic pathologists are now some of the first medical professionals to identify novel synthetic drugs entering the country. That does it for today's Daily Edition. Be sure to check the show notes for more information on today's stories. Got a story you'd like us to cover on the Daily Edition? Write to us at stories at cap.org. We're back at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of The Daily Edition. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. Have a great day.