The Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital's Pathological Anatomy Service (Lleida, Spain) has received the first accreditation issued by ENAC for histopathological studies of gynaecological ovary, endometrium, cervix, vulva and vagina biopsies, and the surgical tumour re-section of parts located there. The biopsy study enables cancer diagnoses, while the types of cancer and studying surgical parts allows a series of parameters to be estimated of the tumour, which are very important when it comes to predicting the prognosis and treatment plan.

The hospital also has been accredited for carrying out cervical-vaginal Pap smears, essential for diagnosing pre-cancerous lesions of the cervix for it to be treated as early as possible.

As with all medical activity, interpreting gynaecological Pap smears and biopsies is not without problems. Much depends on the diagnostic difficulty of the lesions. But other difficulties lie in optimizing the organization of various pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical processes, ranging from sample handling to drafting the final report, sample tracking, protocol optimization, verification of the status of reagents and equipment, adequate control of response time, etc.

Dr. Xavier Matias-Guiu, head of the Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital's Pathological Anatomy Service explains why it chose accreditation for these diagnostic studies, “We decided on gynaecological pathology because it represents a significant number of cases, it is an area where the service has an important scientific trajectory and the pathologists involved are very receptive to suggestions for quality improvement”.

In addition, Dr. Matias-Guiu indicates that under the UNE-EN-ISO 15189 standard, accreditation guarantees good medical practice and greater effectiveness, efficiency and reproducibility of the results and “guarantees the patient that the entire diagnostic process complies with quality criteria from the pre-analytical phase until final diagnosis, and with a good process organization guarantee”.