What Is Pathology and Why Is It Important for Mesothelioma Patients?

[MUSIC PLAYING] So pathology is where you look at the specific tissue. So a pathologist reviews the tissue under a microscope and looks for different characteristics of the tissue. So the first thing would be to obtain a diagnosis, which is done through visualization of the tissue, but it's also completed by looking at what's called immunohistochemistry, which is where you look at specific surface markers to help verify the diagnosis. What we know is that the pathology makes a difference in your expectations for treatment. Patients who have sarcomatoid mesothelioma, that can sometimes be a bit more aggressive than a person who has an epithelioid mesothelioma. Also, patients with epithelioid mesothelioma, we know that we can use different proteins that are secreted by those particular tissues to help in following those patients to determine if they're having good response to treatment. That you can have expectations based on the particular tissue type. So the tissue is the root of all treatment, so the tissue guides us as far as what to give as far as any chemotherapy, and also helps us in determining subsequent treatments, and it also guides us in how we complete clinical trials.