Clinical Operations for Laboratory of Pathology

Division Of Basic Sciences - Nci

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

The Clinical Operations service provides operational support to the basic, translational and clinical services of the Laboratory of Pathology, CCR, NCI, and to ensure the highest quality in diagnostic laboratory testing is accomplished by adherence to regulatory accreditation standards for each of the anatomic pathology clinical services. Clinical Operations staff provide technical and operational support for all sections within the Laboratory of Pathology. This includes pathologists' assistants providing: gross analysis of surgical tissues and biopsies for diagnosis; tissue procurement from surgeries for research investigators; and, post-mortem support. The histopathology service processes and stains biomaterial for pathologist diagnoses of inhouse and submitted clinical cases and supports the research mission of the NIH by providing tissue sections to investigators for their IRB-approved protocols. The surgical pathology central accessioning service receives inhouse and submitted pathology cases for patients on NIH protocol, being considered for protocol, and consultative requests. The surgical pathology staff also processes medlegal requests and manages the return of the pathology reports and submitted pathology biomaterial to the submitting facility. Clinical Operations does not conduct independent research. This past year, the Histology and Surgical Pathology staff processed 21,633 inhouse and submitted surgical, post-mortem and molecular diagnostics cases. The Surgical Pathology administrative staff processed 508 requests for return or release of clinical material to outside laboratories through the medical legal process and via patient-approved requests. The Tissue Resource Committee (TRC) program was established to allow NIH investigators and clinicians access to biomaterial that are approved by their IRB-approved protocols. Each request for specimens is reviewed by a Tissue Resource Committee of Pathologists and regulatory administrative staff in LP prior to distribution. Materials acquired from the TRC program were instrumental resources for data comparison and collection leading to publications in peer review journals. Clinical Operations staff processed a total of 243 TRC requests for material and archived pathology slides this past year, which included: processing over 12,000 unstained slides by microtomy, HandEs and special stains, 58 cases processed for reference laboratory processing; 1,508 tissue blocks released; and, 7,846 slides retrieved from the clinical archives at the request of investigators. The whole slide imaging (WSI) program was initially established to provide digital slide imaging to pathologists for remote case review; however, the WSI has evolved to include digitally archiving consultative cases prior to returning to submitting facilities and participating in developing artificial analytics in whole slide image that is becoming a commonly used tool in clinical and research pathology at the NIH in pathology. The WSI program has become a valuable archival platform used more frequently by clinicians and investigators in support of the clinical, research and academic missions of the Laboratory of Pathology, NCI and NIH. This past year, Clinical Operations staff scanned, annotated and uploaded 20,047 whole slide cases to the NCI storage platform.