Q&A column
Q. I am part of a two-pathologist practice in a rural community hospital of 110 beds. We have been asked more frequently lately to evaluate liver and kidney biopsies for organ transplantation. We are hesitant to evaluate these biopsies for transplantation purposes due to frozen section artifacts and because we send all of our kidney biopsies performed by local nephrologists to a reference laboratory and do not evaluate kidney biopsies. It seems that regardless of what we say about the biopsies, the surgeons transplant the organs. We believe it is out of our scope of practice to evaluate liver and kidney biopsies for organ transplantation. What do you think? Read answer.
Q. What is the minimum and maximum formalin fixation time for cytology specimens for optimal immunohistochemical and nucleic-acid–based molecular testing? Read answer.