Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
Am J Epidemiol. 2012 Oct 15;176(8):668-71. doi: 10.1093/aje/kws227. Epub 2012 Aug 30.
The accompanying paper by Ogino et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2012;176(8):659-667) cogently suggests a need for including modern approaches like molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE) in our research. However, Ogino et al. make an assumption that epidemiology has previously not included pathology or modern technologies in epidemiologic studies and that there is a unique need for the specialty of MPE. The new molecular pathology is yet another technique that can improve epidemiologic investigations. There is a long tradition of combining good pathology with epidemiologic research, especially in studies of cardiovascular disease. Large epidemiologic studies have successfully integrated specialty expertise in a collaborative and mutually beneficial approach to test specific hypotheses. The author is concerned that MPE techniques, whether they involve metabolomics, genomics, proteomics, or microarrays, will come to drive epidemiologic studies without any specific hypothesis-testing or unique population characteristics. The epidemiologist would then become little more than a collector of study subjects and a distributor of the various specimens to the laboratories.
奥吉诺等人的相关论文（《美国流行病学杂志》2012；176(8):659-667）有力地表明，我们的研究需要纳入分子病理流行病学（MPE）等现代方法。然而，奥吉诺等人假设，流行病学以前没有将病理学或现代技术纳入流行病学研究，并且 MPE 专业具有独特的需求。新的分子病理学是另一种可以改进流行病学研究的技术。将良好的病理学与流行病学研究相结合有着悠久的传统，尤其是在心血管疾病的研究中。大型流行病学研究已经成功地将专业知识结合起来，以协作和互利的方式检验具体假设。作者担心，无论 MPE 技术涉及代谢组学、基因组学、蛋白质组学还是微阵列，都将在没有任何特定假设检验或独特人群特征的情况下推动流行病学研究。届时，流行病学家将只不过是研究对象的收集者和将各种标本分发给实验室的分发者。
