Quality Assurance in Tissue Resources Supporting Biomedical Research
“…Monitoring the quality and diagnoses of the actual tissues provided for research (i.e., quality control) is a very important component of the QA program. Tissue facilities have used various forms of QC to aid investigators with their studies in order to ensure that the tissues and associated information provided meet the needs of the investigator (1–3). Many tissues, especially tumors, are heterogeneous; thus, specimens from tumors vary as to the extent of neoplastic cells, mucin production, inflammatory cells and/or necrosis. Fibrosis in and adjacent to tumors may be intermixed with or mistaken for tumor and some tumors may diffusely infiltrate normal tissues making areas of tumor difficult to identify grossly. Therefore, in general, just knowing the diagnosis of a patient from whom tissues are obtained is not adequate quality control for tissues provided for research… Typically in the QC examination, the proportion (percent) of the specimen that is diseased is specified along with the percent necrosis/fibrosis of the diseased areas as well as the percent of other factors such as mucin formation…
2. Cell Preserv Technol. 2008 Jul 30; 6(2): 113–118. doi: 10.1089/cpt.2008.9993.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3094015/
“The quality control examination also can be in part based on “molecular quality control” in which mRNA, DNA and protein are extracted from small aliquots followed by molecular characterization of the molecules using various analytical methods ranging from mass spectrometry or gene arrays to examination of ribosomal bands of RNA using gels (5) or other systems such as the Agilent 2100 System”
“The QA of bodily fluids primarily involves selecting the parameter of collection, processing and storage, and incorporating these into SOPs. It is also important to avoid bias in the selection of patients and in the collection, processing and storage of the specimens (6).