Tomorrow is International Pathology Day (IPD). The day was first marked in Sydney 10 years ago, and has continued to grow in popularity within the international pathology and medical community.

As part of the celebration, Royal College of Pathologists Australasia is revisiting milestones in pathology from the last decade. You can find more information here.

Pathology plays a critical role in healthcare and is a medical specialty in its own right. It is something all doctors and nurses rely on to determine the cause and nature of diseases by examining and testing body tissues and bodily fluids (e.g. blood, urine). Pathology also helps in preventing diseases, and almost 1,000 pathology tests are performed every minute in Australia.

The importance of pathology became even more clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, following a massive increase in swab collection sites and testing capacity. Victoria reached 92,262 tests per day in December 2021, and Northern Pathology Victoria (NPV) performed 2,136 tests in a 24-hour period.

“Bringing pathology in-house has greatly improved the quality of care we can offer. This was evident in the excellent PCR turnaround times during the early periods of the pandemic,” said A/Prof. Prahlad Ho, Divisional Director-Cancer Services and Specialist Clinics, Program Director-Diagnostic Services.

Pathology also plays a critical role in advancing medicine and improving patient outcomes, as both a diagnostic service and by supporting clinical research.

NPV collects samples from pregnant women at Northern Health for the whole-of-state Generation Victoria research project, which aims to create a large group dataset for future discovery and interventional research. Our scientists have also presented at national scientific meetings, such as the Australasian Association for Clinical Biochemistry (Rachelle Liwayan on using a web application to assist clinicians in screening for primary aldosteronism) and Australian Society of Microbiology (Mikayla Kingston on a case of Echinococcus and H. pylori).

In addition, NPV supports the various cancer clinical trials running at Northern Health.

To further support our community, NPV opened a new collection centre at Mill Park in June 2022. The Epping Collection Centre is also open on Sunday mornings from 9 am to 1 pm.

NPV will have a table in the Northern Hospital Epping front foyer tomorrow morning, where you can meet the team while helping yourself to some tasty treats!