News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
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Pathology Errors Trigger Efforts to Improve Standards in Canadian Medical Labs

New National Pathology Council Will Tackle Quality Issues, But Pathologist Understaffing Remains in Some Regions

In Canada, anatomic pathology has a public black eye due to disclosures of pathology misdiagnoses occurring in multiple medical laboratories over the past six years. One big lesson from these events is that public trust in the integrity of clinical laboratory tests is a precious asset that must be protected.

Now comes news that pathologists in Canada will squarely address the issue of pathology test integrity in their nation. Following a series of meetings, pathologists last month announced the creation of the Canadian Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Leadership Council (CPLMLC). Its mission will be to implement a quality-assurance system to address issues that cause medical errors in pathology laboratory testing. Its goal is to reduce or eliminate these sources of medical errors.
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PART TWO: Quebec’s Debate about Breast Cancer Test Errors Turns to Questions about Defining Accuracy of Pathology Laboratory Testing

Specialist physicians in Quebec question why the outside review of ER and HER2 breast cancer pathology test results used a 1% standard versus a 10% standard

Public debate in Quebec about inaccurate tests for breast cancer by the province’s pathology laboratories has turned attention to an area of pathology testing which is seldom discussed in public forums. It is the situation where there is often significant variability in rate of false positives and false negatives reported by different pathology laboratories performing the same tests for breast cancer and other diseases.

Quebec’s media coverage about problems with its pathology laboratories and inaccurate breast cancer tests was reported last week by Dark Daily in the e-briefing titled “PART ONE: More Debate in Quebec about How Pathology Labs Performed Inaccurate Breast Cancer Tests” . Here in Part Two, we describe how Quebec’s medical specialists are calling attention to another source of problems. This is how the use of various standards for evaluating breast cancer specimens can contribute to different rates of false positive and false negative results on pathology tests reported by pathology laboratories in the province.

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