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Surgical Pathology

Surgical Pathology is Yale Pathology Labs’ most comprehensive diagnostic service, reflecting the various subspecialties of more than forty highly qualified physicians. Our board-certified pathologists are experts in most subspecialty areas and offer complete services for all surgical pathology needs. Areas of intense subspecialty interest include the fields of gynecologic, gestational and reproductive pathology, breast pathology, gastroenterologic and hepatic pathology, genitourinary and renal pathology, dermatopathology, hematopathology, neuropathology, and ophthalmic pathology, among others.

  • The team, composed of one pathologist for the YNHH & Saint Raphael Campus site and one pathologist for Bridgeport Hospital, provides consultative services for all clinicians concerned with disease of the musculoskeletal system.
  • The Breast Pathology Service at Yale School of Medicine is highly focused on precise diagnosis and providing reliable results. Board certified pathologists with expertise in breast subspecialty interpret challenging breast cases on a daily basis.  We provide standardized high-quality assays that reduce the likelihood of false positive or negative results.

    In addition to performing comprehensive studies and our attention to detail to ensure accuracy, we review difficult diagnoses at a daily consensus conference where challenging cases, which include “borderline cases of atypical ductal hyperplasia versus carcinoma and rare or unusual types of breast cancer," are presented and discussed. These meetings serve as a sort of “second opinion” that is built into the system. The goal is to provide accurate results for each individual patient.

    Breast cases that need multidisciplinary management are discussed at the multidisciplinary breast tumor board, where experts from various specialties from Smilow Cancer Hospital, surgeons, radiologists, and oncologists meet to review treatment options.  
  • Yale Cardiovascular Pathology Service provides comprehensive diagnostic expertise in the pathology of the heart and blood vessels. Our services include the most up-to-date classification of antibody and acute cellular rejection in adult and pediatric transplanted hearts.

  • Yale Medicine Dermatopathology is currently the most sophisticated and technically advanced laboratory in the region. We understand that you trust your doctor to provide an accurate diagnosis. Our dermatologists and dermatopathologists, pathologists who specialize in skin conditions, work side by side to ensure that you receive the right diagnosis that leads to the best possible care.
  • Tissue diagnosis by a subspecialty group of expert genitourinary pathologists, with a focus on genitourinary malignancies, including kidney cancer, bladder cancer, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer.  
  • The team of Gastrointestinal Pathologists at Yale is dedicated to provide state of the art diagnostic services pertaining to these disorders: Gastroesophageal reflux, Barrett’s esophagus, Helicobacter pylori gastritis, stomach cancer, colorectal polyps and cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma.

  • The Yale Gynecological Pathology Program at Yale Medicine engages in clinical service, translational research, and teaching. The program emphasizes diagnostic tissue evaluation, oncological biomarker identification and clinical applications, and understanding the pathogenesis of various gynecological cancers. The core faculty members have particular clinical expertise in the diagnostic workup of gestational trophoblastic disease.
  • The Endocrine, Head and Neck Pathology Service specializes in the evaluation of thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, head and neck diseases including those of the oral cavity, larynx and pharynx, eye & ear, salivary glands, jaw & skull bones, and soft tissue. The team renders diagnoses on a little over 6000 cases each year. The practice strongly leans toward oncologic pathology due to referral bias and the tertiary nature of the hospital. The practice is supported by a well-appointed immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology laboratories, the former carrying a repertoire of more than 200 antibodies for diagnosis and prognosis. We offer HPV testing by PCR, and EBV testing by in-situ hybridization on formalin-fixed paraffin embedded cancer tissues.
  • The Hematopathology Service specializes in the evaluation of lymph nodes, bone marrow, blood, spleen, and hematolymphoid tissues in other organs. The faculty are board-certified in this specialty, with expertise in both anatomic and clinical pathology aspects of hematopathology. The Hematopathology team renders diagnoses on 3300 primary diagnostic specimens each year and an additional 1000 consultation specimens. As a tertiary referral center, many of these cases are malignant in nature, including but not limited to aggressive and indolent lymphomas, chronic myeloid neoplasms, acute leukemias, and plasma cell neoplasms. Challenging cases are discussed in detail among the expert hematopathologists at the weekly consensus conference. The faculty are involved nationally and internationally in professional societies and organizations to advance their field. The program offers a highly competitive fellowship in Hematopathology to two trainees each year. These are one-year fellowships (joint between anatomic and clinical pathology) that can be extended for approved research.
  • The Yale Medical Renal Pathology and Electron Microscopy Laboratory is a nationally recognized center for diagnostic renal pathology and electron microscopy. It provides the most effective methodologies available for light microscopic, ultrastructural and immunological diagnosis of kidney biopsies and surgical pathology specimen. These include transmission electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry and standard and confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. There is special emphasis on the diagnosis of glomerular, tubulointerstitial and vascular kidney diseases, as well as evaluation of transplant kidney biopsies. Electron microscopy is further of value in the diagnosis of ciliary abnormalities, metabolic disorders, microbial identification, and tumor diagnosis. As one of the few clinical electron microscopy services with digital imaging capability in the nation, the Yale Renal Pathology Laboratory is well positioned to serve a wide geographic area with rapid turnaround time combined with expert consultative services. 
  • Yale Neuropathology
  • The Ophthalmic Pathology Service provides diagnostic services to the Yale Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences as well as community ophthalmologists and other hospitals in the area. We evaluate the broad range of specimens received from in and around the eye, including the skin of the eyelid, the conjunctiva, the cornea, the orbit, and the globe (eyeball). This includes both inflammatory and neoplastic lesions.
  • The pediatric pathology service specializes in the evaluation of tissue specimen from patients of pediatric age (0-18 years) and from perinatal specimens including evaluation of fetal malformations and placentas.  Pediatric pathology is a pathology subspecialty requiring a specific board certification. We participate in national and international meetings and society  focusing in the advance in the field of pediatric and perinatal pathology
  • The Yale Thoracic Pathology Service specializes in analysis of tissue obtained from the thorax, including lungs, trachea, and chest wall, for evaluation for neoplastic (e.g. lung cancer, mesothelioma, other tumors) conditions as well as specific non-neoplastic conditions (inflammatory lung disease, including specific infections and fibrotic (scarring) diseases of the lung). The Service includes evaluation of prognostic features relative to tumor immunotherapy (PD-L1 expression levels).