The important message is that molecular pathology is not replacing histopathology. Also, make sure you can spend some time in a molecular lab to learn more about how the techniques are performed and utilised. If you become a histopathology trainee you will be expected to engage with molecular pathology from the beginning many cases will now have associated molecular test reports to interpret and getting to grips with these at an early stage to give you lots of experience is recommended. Molecular pathology now features as a prominent part of the training pathway for histopathologists and also features within the examinations. You also may be asked to assess tumour samples for the percentage of tumour cells and the level of cellularity – these two factors can make a big difference to the accuracy of the molecular results. There are dozens of different molecular tests that are available for the histopathologist to use these include different sequencing methods (whole genome, whole exome, targeted panel sequencing, RNA sequencing etc.), fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH), mass spectrometry and immunofluorescence to name a few. We are also faced with the frequent occurrence where cancers can look very similar to each other microscopically but genetically they are very different and therefore require very different treatments molecular pathology can help identify this differentiation. Molecular pathology is a very useful tool that can help you to provide a diagnosis for a case where the histopathology is actually very challenging. This is the era of ‘molecular pathology’ and it is the histopathologist who is leading these changes and ensuring that they now feature within clinical practice. This has resulted in some significant changes to clinical practice and diagnostic pathways. has enabled us to make a much more accurate diagnosis helping us to understand more about what causes the disease or cancer and potentially how we can treat it.

However, we now know that this is not the case and the ability to look inside the individual cells at the genetic material, constituents and proteins etc.

Previously, observing cells and tissues microscopically and identifying the features that characterise malignancy or other disease processes was sufficient to make a diagnosis. The role of the histopathologist is now changing.