Clinician’s Responsibility in Pre-analytical Quality Assurance of Histopathology

Objective: To ascertain the adequacy of information provided by clinicians when requesting a histopathology investigation and to study the quality control parameters of the specimen containers. Methodology: This is an observational descriptive study which was carried out at Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in December 2006 on 500 specimen requests for histopathology. Results: Out of 500 specimens, age was not mentioned in 29 (5.8%) cases. No clinical history or differential diagnosis was given in 170 (34%) cases. Site of biopsy was absent in 65 (13%) cases and the name of requesting clinician or any contact information was present in only 115 (23%) of request forms. One hundred forty three (28.7%) containers were inadequate relative to the size of the specimen. Adequate volume of fixative was absent in 176 (38.2%) samples. There were 22 (4.3%) samples which did not have any sort of label mentioning either patient’s name or type of specimen. Injection bottles constituted the highest number of containers (n=204; 40.8%) used to submit the histopathology specimen. Conclusion: Clinicians of all grades and specialties must be educated and made aware of their primary responsibility to request the service appropriately for the benefit of the patient and