Medscape July 29, 2022
Tissue samples from patients can contaminate each other on their way to the histology laboratory, reports a single-hospital study that experts say reveals longstanding issues in pathology processing.
Experiments implicated the practice of packing cassettes of tissue samples on racks in a shared formalin bath for transport. The agitation of fluid sloshing back and forth between and through the cassettes presumably dislodges small fragments of tissue that get trapped in other samples, even when protective packaging is used, report the authors, who are pathologists at University of Chicago Medical Center.
“The common approach of submitting and transporting tissue in wet media poses a significant risk of contamination that is casually accepted by most practices,” lead author Timothy Carll, MD, told...
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