抄録
Toxicologic pathology in Europe, as in the rest of the world, has seen a great deal of change over the past ten years, particularly with the advent of many different computerized systems of recording data. Pharmaceutical or chemical products developed by one particular company are distributed and registered today worldwide, and therefore there is a need for an international harmonization of procedures and methods applied in the safety evaluation process of these new components. In order to reduce the number of animal experiments, to allow a comparison between different studies, and to gain better acceptance by regulatory agencies worldwide, the standardization of procedures, the exchange of data in electronic formats, and a harmonization of terms and criteria for interpretation are necessary. All of these require efficient use of computerized systems.
In Europe, the development of an information system designed for use in routine toxicologic pathology, as well as for educational purposes, named RENI (REgistry Nomenclature Information system) in parallel with the establishment of the pathology data base system RITA (Registry of Industrial Toxicology Animal-data) and the implementation of a systematized classification for toxicological pathology. This system of standardized nomenclature and diagnostic criteria has been adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO)/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) after a scientific review by pathology experts from Europe, the United States and Japan.
