By Gary Grossman
Talking with Pathologists’ Assistants, I’ve learned that their role may change day-to-day and is definitely different from lab-to-lab. The company I work with, FormaPath, has initiated our quest to automate some of the repetitive tasks found in the AP lab, providing a level of easy standardization to some long-standing procedures that not only are time consuming, but also can be accomplished while Pathologists’ Assistants focus on more pressing matters. Meet the AdiPress.
AdiPress automates the lymph node dissection process and is the fastest way to find all lymph nodes present in a colorectal cancer resection. AdiPress uses precise force to compress adipose cells, leaving behind only lymph nodes and connective tissue that can be submitted in a predictable number of cassettes.
Why might this be important? First and foremost, accurate staging is paramount to the treating oncologist in determining the right course of therapy for the patient. Obtaining the greatest number of lymph nodes possible aides in this staging determination. Soon to be published research indicates that as many as 2.6 times the number of lymph nodes can be found with AdiPress versus manual palpation. There will always be discrepancies among Pathologists’ Assistants’ skillsets and the time they have available to dedicate to any one lymph node search. It becomes especially more difficult in those patients who have been treated previously with chemotherapy to locate those shrunken lymph nodes, so a lot of time may be dedicated to a, sometimes, futile search.
Common knowledge supports the time crunch in the AP lab—there’s just not enough hours in the day to get everything done that is being asked. How much time is spent on a lymph node search? How is time allocated by the Pathologists’ Assistant based on the numerous other tasks the busy lab demands? Do some lymph node searches get put off for hours while more vital projects take precedence? AdiPress can do its work in about 2 minutes allowing the return of some valuable time that could be dedicated to something else.
The use of AdiPress reduces the block count (number of specimens to review) and eliminates the shortcut of submitting blocks of fat that manual palpation neglected to find lymph nodes in, yet, were sent to make slides anyway. And, it allows for accurate staging without altering morphology or destroying large lymph nodes.
AdiPress has been designed to easily integrate into the laboratory’s existing workflow. Due to the sample tissue being defatted, labs state that processing and staining is simple and easy. Additionally, Pathologists report clean histology making lymph node identification and interpretation quite efficient.
This is only the first device FormaPath has created that not only may eliminate discomfort and risk of injury for those involved in manual palpation of tissue samples, but also will return necessary time to their hectic work day.