The Unsafe Archaic Processes of Tissue Pathology
Richard J. Zarbo
Abstract
I am pleased to write this editorial on a topic that has been of concern to me for quite some time. If you are a medical director, responsible for the quality and safety of your laboratory operations, or if you have been the unfortunate pathologist associated with a contaminant-related sentinel event and, possibly worse, a medical-legal claim, you will understand. If not, you may want to read on. In this issue of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, Carll and Pytel1 designed an experiment demonstrating tissue contamination of cassettes transported in formalin-filled containers. To provide a lay analogy, they have shown that if you take a communal bath with no provision to drain, filter, or cleanse the tub, then the expectation is that whatever was in the tub from its current or prior occupants will potentially contaminate you. Most people would reply, no thanks. This is but one flawed process step, with others publishing their own documentation of contamination errors in additional processes at microtome water baths and linear batch staining platforms that affect slide production in histology.2-4