The COVID-19 pandemic: Pathologists support the clinical infectious diseases team

The pathologist is involved in many diagnostic steps together with the clinical infectious disease team in the management of COVID-19-affected patients. In particular, cytological and histopathological procedures as well as autoptic findings may represent useful tools to better understand the pathobiology of the disease as well as to correctly define causes of death. Moreover, pathologists have been forced to reconsider the usual laboratory workflow and introduce adequate guidelines against virus diffusion in the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring high biosafety levels. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncnd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Pathologists collaborate with clinical infectious disease teams in diagnostic steps for COVID-19 patients, utilizing cytological and histopathological procedures to understand the disease's pathobiology. They have also introduced guidelines for high biosafety levels to prevent virus diffusion during the pandemic.