The mission of pathology is to generate from tissue, cell and DNA samples as much information as possible that is relevant for the best treatment of patients, now and in the future. The latter evidently refers to pathology research.
For generating information, data are crucial. Evidently, this involves data derived from tissue, cell and DNA samples, which are accumulated in massive amounts in modern pathology, Yet, these pathology data alone do not yield information that is relevant for the best treatment of patients. To meet this criterion, additional conditions should be fulfilled. These include that data should be of high quality, data should be structured and standardised, data should be available in sufficiently large numbers to conduct practice changing studies. Moreover, the data required for this purpose are not only restricted tot diagnostics / pathology data, but also to data concerning the interventions that follow the diagnosis, and subsequently the clinical outcome that follows. However, advancing medicine, particularly in pathology, is hindered by the limited availability of comprehensive data resources that meet these criteria. This scarcity is due to complex, multifaceted challenges. Promising developments aimed at overcoming these obstacles and the opportunities they present will be discussed.