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United States Government Work, uncopyrighted, public-domain,
DRAFT COPY ONLY. This document does not necessarily represent the views
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This document is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind,
express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties
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PRINCIPLE OF THE TEST.
Gross specimens are retained for a suitable period.
SPECIMEN REQUIRED.
All human tissue excised at surgery, outpatient clinics, and postmortems,
fresh or in fixative, along with a filled-out
Tissue Examination Form (U. S. Standard Form 515, USSF515).
REAGENTS, INSTRUMENTATION.
VistA® computer system.
STEP-BY-STEP DESCRIPTION.
1. Gross specimens are retained for at least two weeks.
The Chief, Surgical Pathology section, periodically prepares
a list of discard cases by checking against the list
of unverified cases. This list is produced by
the VISTA Computer System.
The Chief, Surgical Pathology verifies
that only finished cases have their gross specimens discarded.
2. Regarding retention time of slides, paraffin blocks, etc.,
we employ the 1983 recommended retention times proposed
by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), as follows:
2.1. Accession log records: 2 years.
2.2. Wet tissue (stock bottle): 2 weeks after final report.
2.2. Paraffin blocks: 10 years.
2.4. Glass slides and paper and computer reports are kept permanently.
REFERENCE.
Prophet EB, Mills B, Arrington JB, Sobin LH.
Laboratory Methods in Histotechnology, pp. 3-8.
1992: Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,
Washington, DC. 20306-6000.
ISBN: 1-881041-00-X 1992.