Specimen Reception
Specimens for histopathological diagnosis are sent to histology laboratories either during or
soon after a surgical operation. The specimens come from hospital operating theatres and also
from the surgeries of general practitioners (GPs) in the community. GPs usually only send small
biopsies, such as skin or colposcopy biopsies of the cervix. Specimens received from hospital
theatres may be from any part of the body and may be tiny biopsy samples or whole limbs or organs.
All specimens should be accompanied by appropriate paper-work which names the patient and gives
their age and date of birth as absolute minimum identity checks. Preferably the patient's
postal address and some kind of unique registration number (such as a hospital number or, in
the UK, an NHS number) should also be included. Immediately upon receipt of a specimen, this
paper-work is checked by a member of the laboratory staff. All details should match those
written on the specimen container.
After the patient details have been checked, the specimen may be accepted for examination and
the details are usually transferred to a computer database. In some laboratories a 'day-book'
or ledger is still used. In either case, a unique specimen number will be assigned to the case
at this stage as it often happens that different patients of the same name are having their
cases processed at the same time. Along with the patient details, details of the specimen
itself are also recorded. These specimen details should also have been included in the
paper-work and should include the nature of the material (eg. skin, bone, liver) as well
as the site of it's location in-vivo (eg. left flank) and also the reason for the
investigation (eg. suspected carcinoma).
Once the specimen and paper-work have been matched and "booked-in" to the system they are
labelled with the unique case number assigned earlier. The case is now ready for
"cut-up".