Internet based second opinion pathology in a large chemotherapy trial for ovarian cancer – results of a standardized review process

Background: It has been suggested that specialized pathology review prior to randomization should become standard procedure in study protocols, because a considerable number of patients in clinical trials of ovarian carcinoma may have histopathological diagnoses in conflict with inclusion criteria. We hypothesized that our new, internet-based high throughput infrastructure would be capable of providing specialized second opinion pathology within 10 days. Design: Patients scheduled for the AGO OVAR17 ovarian carcinoma chemotherapy trial were registered for expert pathologic case review prior to randomization. All…