Tiempos y condiciones de almacenamiento de las muestras en anatomía patológica. Recomendaciones de la Sociedad Española de Anatomía Patológica parte 1: muestras destinadas al diagnóstico

Introduction

The correct storage of specimens in the Pathology service is of vital importance for patient safety. However, there are no clear recommendations as regarding how long samples should be stored for a minimum period.

Material and methods

A working group of the Spanish Society of Anatomic Pathology has reviewed a series of recommendations established in the literature and after two rounds of consultations and a discussion and voting phase has established a series of storage time proposals.

Results

Each of the proposals is presented with the data found in the literature and sometimes offers definitions and exceptions to the proposal.

Conclusion

These recommendations, which are minimums, establish a period of at least 10 years for paraffin embedded blocks (including cell blocks), histological preparations, general cytology, pathologic cervico-vaginal cytology and electron microscopy blocks; at least 3 years for cervico-vaginal cytology, 5 years for extracted nucleic acids, at least 4 weeks for tissue in formalin and from the time of diagnosis for liquid cytology material and fluids.