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Letter
Patients review their pathology reports before their treating physician: heading towards patient autonomy? Focus on prostate cancer
  1. Rodolfo Montironi1,
  2. Alessia Cimadamore2,
  3. Antonio Lopez-Beltran3,
  4. Eamonn T Rogers4,
  5. Liang Cheng5
  1. 1Molecular Medicine and Cell Therapy Foundation, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
  2. 2Pathological Anatomy, University of Udine, Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
  3. 3Pathology and Surgery, Universidad de Cordoba Facultad de Medicina y Enfermeria, Cordoba, Spain
  4. 4Urology, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland
  5. 5Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Department of Surgery (Urology), Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School, the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University, and Brown University Health, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
  1. Correspondence to Professor Rodolfo Montironi; rodolfo.montironi51{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/jcp-2025-210200

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    Introduction

    We read with interest the recent publication in the Journal of Clinical Pathology by Ranot et al entitled “If you provide them, they will come: an observational study of online pathology report access by patients at a large, academic, tertiary care hospital in Canada”.1 They found that “53% of patients accessed their report before the treating physician”.

    The study by Ranot et al1 has prompted us—whose main professional interests are uropathology as well as patient advocacy—to explore reasons why patients want to know before the treating physician the results of the histological examination contained in their pathology report. The following reasons have been identified: (1) to be prepared to speak of their disease with the physician and (2) to be ready to participate in the diagnostic and therapeutic processes, including the correlation of their pathology with clinical information.

    To be prepared to speak of their disease with the physician

    The question is what can be done to make pathology reports easier for patients to understand. MyPathologyReport2 is an educational tool created to give support to patients in understanding their pathology report. It deals with the definitions for the most common terms and phrases used by pathologists in their final reports, including explanations for many diagnostic markers and pathology tests.3

    Concerning prostate cancer (PCa), a recent publication as well as a state-of-the-art meeting, addressed the following …

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Vikram Deshpande.

    • Contributors RM and ETR conceived the study. AC and RM wrote the manuscript. AL-B and LC provided expert revision. All authors reviewed and contributed to the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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