Neuropathology Services
The department of Neuropathology PathWest is a Statewide service and provides a comprehensive neuropathology service to all WA teaching hospitals (Royal Perth Hospital (RPH), Sir Charles Gairdner, Perth Children’s Hospital(PCH), and Fiona Stanley Hospitals) and for the private sector. The laboratory based at RPH is one of the few comprehensive neuropathology laboratories in Australia. The laboratory is the state referral centre for wide range of adult, paediatric, neuromuscular, neuro-oncology, neurodegenerative and miscellaneous specimens related to the central and peripheral nervous system. A range of biopsies specimens including intracranial and intraspinal biopsies, temporal lobectomies, sural nerve and muscle biopsies, as well as non-coronial autopsy specimens such as the brain and spinal cord are examined and reported by expert neuropathologists. The laboratory has close ties with the Malignant Hyperthermia clinic, run by the anaesthetics department at RPH, and is actively involved in tissue diagnosis of suspected malignant hyperthermia.
Expert neuropathologists and surgical pathologists provide a year-round 24-hour intra-operative neuro-oncology frozen section service at the QEII Medical Centre. Off-site frozen section service is offered to Fiona Stanley Hospital, SJOG Hospital Subiaco, SJOG Hospital Murdoch, Hollywood Private Hospital, The Mount Hospital, and PCH involving neuropathologists travelling to the various sites to provide frozen section service to all WA patients. Consultant staff attend weekly Statewide Neuro-oncology Multidisciplinary meetings at the QEII Medical Centre, contribute to Tumour Board Meetings at Perth Children’s Hospital and run a biweekly Myopathology multidisciplinary meeting with managing clinicians including neurologists and rheumatologists. Emphasis is placed on careful correlation of biopsy findings with the results of neuromuscular history and clinical examination findings, neuroimaging and other relevant investigations. Best practice neuropathology-specific diagnoses are formulated integrating, where required, ultrastructural, molecular and cytogenetic workup. Neuropathology has long-standing and well-established clinical networks with anaesthetics, neurosurgery, gerontology, rheumatology and neurology, amongst others.