Abstract
Introduction and Objectives
Due to significant cuts in reimbursement, more efficient histology techniques are needed to maintain the economic viability of the histology laboratory. There is also an increasing need to maximize tissue preservation for ancillary testing. The BxChipTM(Leavitt Medical Inc. Patent Pending) is a clinical tissue array made of an artificial tissue-like material that quickly receives and holds multiple tissue cores. Encasing numerous needle cores enables the arrayed samples to be processed, embedded, and sectioned as though they were a single standard tissue. Colored dividers between each core allow the pathologist to distinguish different anatomic sites while providing orientation for each core. This study compares the overall prostate cancer detection rates and the average amount of tissue present (average area and core length) on regular slides versus those made with BxChip clinical tissue arrays.
Methods
Two hundred sixty-seven consecutive twelve-pack prostate needle biopsies were analyzed during five weeks. Approximately half of the cases were processed and embedded using the BxChip clinical tissue array, and the other cases were processed using conventional blocks and slides. The cases were matched according to the urologist performing the procedure to account for the biopsy technique. Slide tissue measurements were performed using a Leica SCN 400 scanner, and images were stored, sorted, and measured using DIH software (Leica).
Results
Comparing traditional sectioning to CHIP-based sectioning, the cross-sectional surface area of tissue on the glass slideeview and the length of biopsy tissue on the slide increased from an average of 4.8 mm2 and 10.7 mm to 5.5 mm2 a available for rnd 14.1 mm, respectively. This was significant at a level of p<0.0001. The cancer detection rate increased from 49.5% to 58.8%, comparing traditional sectioning to Chip-based sectioning p<0.0001. Current diagnostic molecular techniques have been validated on this platform.
Conclusions
Superior prostate biopsy performance is achieved by utilizing the BxChip clinical tissue arrays. Additionally, this comes with tremendous cost savings to the laboratory.
AUA Journal of Urology: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2016.02.2584
