Histopathology Diagnostic Specialties
we specialise in:
(click the link below to meet our key contacts)
- Autopsy
- Breast pathology
- Cardiothoracic pathology
- Dermatopathology (Skin pathology)
- Endocrine pathology
- Forensic pathology
- Gastrointestinal pathology
- Gynaecological pathology
- Haematopathology
- Head and Neck pathology
- Liver and Pancreato-biliary pathology
- Neuropathology
- Non-Gynae / Diagnostic cytology
- Osteoarticular pathology
- Paediatric pathology
- Perinatal pathology
- Renal pathology
- Urological pathology
Autopsy
The Newcastle-upon-Tyne NHS Foundation Trust Department of Cellular Pathology provides a specialist autopsy service to Hospitals and Coroners throughout the northeast of England and Cumbria. Around 1000 autopsies are performed for Coroners and around 300 autopsies for Hospitals. The latter are mostly perinatal and paediatric autopsies.
The autopsy team consists of the following
- Three consultant forensic pathologists (all home office registered),
- Two consultant perinatal pathologists
- Two consultant neuropathologists
- One dedicated consultant autopsy pathologist
- 6 consultant histopathologists who perform autopsies
- Two trainee forensic pathologists
- One trainee perinatal pathologist
- One trainee neuropathologist
- Six anatomical pathology technicians
- Four dedicated clerical staff
The autopsy team is backed up by specialist laboratory services and histopathology expertise covering all areas of diagnostic pathology.
Autopsies are performed at two modern facilities at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and the Freeman Hospital.
As well as providing a “routine” service to HM Coroner for Newcastle and to the NUTH trust we provide an expert referral service covering all aspects of autopsy pathology. Currently we accept the following referred cases from across the northeast and Cumbria
- Paediatric and perinatal cases (150 cases per annum)
- Neuropathological cases for diagnostic and research purposes (50 cases per annum)
- Complex medicolegal cases (50 cases per annum)
The consultant forensic pathologists provide an on-call service for suspicious death investigation for the Northumbria, Durham, Cleveland and North Yorkshire police forces (total population covered 3.1 m) and expert referral service for Coroners and police forces throughout the UK and to Solicitors within the UK and further afield including provision of expert witness evidence at Inquests, Crown Court, Civil courts and at Court Martial.
Not only do we provide training for two Home Office sponsored forensic pathology trainees but a comprehensive training programme (both practical training and lecture based) is provided for histopathology trainees completing the Certificate of Higher Autopsy Training of the Royal College of Pathologists. Teaching is also provided at weekly sessions to medical students at Newcastle University and as needed to health care professionals such as nurses.
Dr. Colin Saysell
Breast pathology
Cardiothoracic pathology
The Cardiothoracic Pathology team routinely consists of 4 consultants, and it receives around 1800 cases per year. The Trust is a regional centre for cardiothoracic surgery including pleural/VATS expertise and a robotic service, and it also provides a regional multidisciplinary service for diffuse interstitial lung diseases. It is the largest cardiothoracic transplant centre in the UK; dealing with both adult and paediatric patients and including recipients from the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Other related areas of note include a Ventricular Assist Device Programme of international standing, one of the national centres for pulmonary hypertension and bone marrow/stem cell transplantation, and the status of an experimental cancer medicine centre. These all provides a wide and varied range of specimens, ranging from intra-operative frozen sections, to regional lung tumour biomarker profiling and complex paediatric cases.
Dermatopathology (Skin pathology)
Skin Pathology
The Dermatopathology team comprises 4 specialist Dermatopathologists and a Dermatopathology Training Fellow, and reports over 15,000 cases per year. The Dermatopathology Fellow post is a full time dermatopathology training post recognised for the Diploma in Dermatopathology, and is the second in UK after St. John’s Institute in London. The team works with one of the largest Dermatology Departments in the UK, which provides a full range of specialised services, including dermatological surgeons who perform Mohs’ surgery, dedicated clinics for pigmented lesions (including a ‘choose and book’ melanoma clinic), paediatric dermatology, alopecia, photodermatoses and cutaneous lymphomas. Immunofluorescence studies are performed in house on bullous diseases. Cancer patients are discussed in a Supraregional MDTM, and a monthly CTCL MDTM is held to discuss cutaneous T cell lymphoma. In addition, a weekly inflammatory dermatopathology CPC is held where challenging and difficult rashes are discussed.
Endocrine pathology
Forensic pathology
The consultant forensic pathologists provide an on-call service for suspicious death investigation for the Northumbria, Durham, Cleveland and North Yorkshire police forces (total population covered 3.1 m) and expert referral service for Coroners and police forces throughout the UK and to Solicitors within the UK and further afield including provision of expert witness evidence at Inquests, Crown Court, Civil courts and at Court Martial.
Not only do we provide training for two Home Office sponsored forensic pathology trainees but a comprehensive training programme (both practical training and lecture based) is provided for histopathology trainees completing the Certificate of Higher Autopsy Training of the Royal College of Pathologists. Teaching is also provided at weekly sessions to medical students at Newcastle University and as needed to health care professionals such as nurses.
The Haematopathology team is composed of three specialist haematopathologists –
Dr Chris Bacon, Dr Katrina Wood and Dr Despina Televantou – and reports approximately 1500 cases per year. We provide the specialist diagnostic service for lymphomas throughout the region as part of the Northern England Haemato-Oncology Diagnostic Service (NEHODS). NEHODS brings together expertise in histopathology, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridisation, haematology, flow cytometry, cytogenetics and molecular genetics with a centralised specimen reception at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and integrated laboratory services. We provide fully integrated laboratory reports for Clinical Haematologists treating patients with haematological malignancies across the region. Dr Bacon is a Senior Lecturer at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University, leading a research team investigating the biology and genetics of aggressive lymphoma, especially T-cell, paediatric and immunodeficiency-associated lymphoma.
There are two lymphoma consensus meetings a week and a weekly bone marrow consensus meeting. The team provides the pathology input to the North of Tyne MDT and the Sunderland group MDT. We provide the specialist Haematopathology lymphoma diagnostic service for cases from Northumberland healthcare NHS foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne NHS foundation Trust, North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS foundation Trust, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust and North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust. We support the Teeside group MDT by weekly consensus meetings at the RVI with Dr Alex Svec, the Haematopathologist based at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough. We also have a regular supra-regional cutaneous T-cell lymphoma MDT meeting.
Liver and Pancreato-biliary pathology
The liver and pancreato-biliary pathology team of the Department of Cellular Pathology, Royal Victoria Infirmary, NUTH Trust consists of four dedicated consultant histopathologists dealing with over 1200 specimens per year. NUTH Trust is a tertiary referral centre for hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) surgery receiving more than 1500 new cancer referrals annually. The regional liver medicine and transplantation service is one of the largest units of its kind in the UK and provides expert care for all aspects of liver disease. The liver and pancreato-biliary pathology pathology team provides highest quality histopathological assessment of approximately 650 liver core biopsies for medical liver diseases, including post transplant assessment and liver tumours, more than 150 liver resections for primary and secondary malignancy, approximately 50 liver explants, more than 100 pancreatic cancer resections per year, and over 250 EUS-guided fine needle biopsies of the HPB region. In addition, the team provides expert second opinions for numerous regional case referrals but also to national and international colleagues. The liver and pancreato-biliary pathology team contributes to the HPB multidisciplinary meeting (MDM), the neuroendocrine tumour MDM, and conducts the weekly liver clinico-pathological conference. All team members are educational supervisors of specialist trainees in histopathology (STs) and enthusiastically engage in clinical supervision of STs and advanced practitioners. They also take part in undergraduate teaching of Newcastle University medical students and in postgraduate teaching of pathologists and other clinical specialists. The team actively participates in regional, national and international research in the field of liver and pancreato-biliary diseases.
The Diagnostic Neuropathology Service team consists of 3 consultants, 1 trainee, 3 biomedical scientists and 1 rotating health care assistant. The main diagnostic neuropathology work in Newcastle includes neurosurgical biopsies (mainly adult and paediatric central nervous system tumours), muscle biopsies, neuropathological autopsies (mostly HM Coroner’s post mortem examinations) and peripheral nerve biopsies. Together with one neuropathologist who works at the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, the Diagnostic Neuropathology Service at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, forms the regional neuropathological referral and training centre of the Northern England, supporting the population of the area which extends from Carlisle and Whitehaven to Sunderland and Scarborough.
The team members participate actively in the weekly adult and paediatric multi-disciplinary brain tumour meetings and diagnostic muscle biopsy meetings. The Diagnostic Neuropathology Service has also tight links with the John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre, the Welcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research, Paediatric Brain Tumour Research Group, and the Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource, supporting various local, national and international research projects.
Non-Gynae / Diagnostic cytology
The paediatric oncology pathology team is composed of four consultant pathologists – Dr Katrina Wood, Dr Sri Annavarapu, Dr Holly Buist and Dr Corina Moldovan. We report the diagnostic biopsies and surgical resections from children being treated at the Department of Paediatric and Adolescent Haematology and Oncology, located at the Great North Children’s Hospital at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, which is
the Regional Treatment Centre for all of the paediatric tumours in the Northern region, from Teesside to Newcastle, and Northumberland to Cumbria and is one of the largest centres in the UK.
All cases are discussed at a weekly paediatric oncology MDT meeting. Newcastle is the national reference centre for neuroblastoma cytogenetics and the pathology team is also involved with tumour banking, research programmes and clinical trials through close links with the Northern Institute for Cancer Research at Newcastle University and the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG).
The renal pathology team is composed of three consultants – Dr Katrina Wood, Dr Joaquim Majo and Dr Holly Buist, reporting approximately 350 biopsies per year. The team reports native and renal transplant biopsies for the adult Nephrology service based at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle. The kidney transplant unit (based at Newcastle’s Institute of Transplantation) serves the whole of the Northern region, performing about 100 kidney transplants every year. The renal pathology team also reports the native and renal transplant biopsies for the Paediatric Nephrology service based at the Great North Children’s hospital, which provides kidney disease and transplantation services for the whole of the Northern Region.
We currently also report native and transplant renal biopsies for the Carlisle Nephrologists.
Modalities of assessment include light microscopy, immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy. We provide a diagnostic renal electron microscopy service with provision of digital images for Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Liverpool (RLUH). All the local renal biopsies are discussed at a weekly Nephrology CPC at Freeman hospital.
There are 6 consultants who contribute to the Uropathology team, which receives around 4000 cases per year.
The Trust is a regional centre for testicular cancer surgery and it also provides a supra-regional multidisciplinary service for testicular cancer. Other related areas of note include a robotic radical prostatectomy service. (Please follow link to Newcastle Urology webpage to explore all services offered)
The fantastic range of clinical and surgical activity within the urology directorate provides a diverse range of pathological specimens, ranging from targeted biopsies to complex, multi-organ resections.
The department houses trainee medics and laboratory staff of all grades, and the trust has strong links with Newcastle medical school and university, along with which come fantastic training and teaching opportunities.
We have strong links with molecular and genetics departments and research collaboration with these directorates as well as with our clinical and surgical colleagues is renowned and on-going.