Optimize Patient Outcomes by Improving Pre-Analytics

With the increasing emphasis on precision medicine in oncology and the need for biomarker testing, pathologists and the pathology community are in the center of the patient's tissue journey. As guardians and stewards of the tissue, pathologists are responsible for ensuring the quality of samples used for accurate diagnosis and biomarker testing. Preanalytics - the collection, handling and processing of clinical biospecimens - are critically important but rigor around the control of factors that adversely affect biospecimens is lacking. This presentation will introduce the tissue optimization and pre-analytic standardization program developed by APPIA, the Anatomic Pathology Patient Interest Association, a non-profit consortium with membership from Agilent, Leica Biosystems, Roche and Sakura Finetek. The mission of APPIA is to advance patient safety, quality, standards and accessibility of care in anatomic pathology. This presentation will provide a better understanding of how the lack of standardization of pre-analytic factors has the potential to negatively impact the quality of the tissue specimen for downstream diagnostic and molecular testing. Examples of best practices to help optimize tissue preservation and quality and how these can be implemented in clinical practice will be discussed.