Thermo Fisher Scientific Improves Cancer Diagnostics for West of Scotland Regional Cytogenetics Service

The Varistain Gemini ES is setting new standards for the efficiency of slide banding at the facility, reducing the slide-making and banding workload of the technical staff by nearly 50 percent. In addition, the ClearVue solves the workflow hassles facing the laboratory, delivering the speed and precision that the postnatal division demands. The coverslipping machine ensures that each slide is uniform in both the placement of the coverslip and the depth of the mountant, significantly improving the procedure.

The West of Scotland Regional Cytogenetics Service provides assistance to approximately three million people in western Scotland. The postnatal laboratory is using a full range of standard cytogenetic techniques and molecular cytogenetic technology to provide comprehensive chromosome analysis for both constitutional and acquired abnormalities. The laboratory processes approximately 6,500 analyses per year: nearly 2,800 of these are postnatal referrals. With such a high turnaround, the laboratory recognized that it needed to implement automated procedures to improve reporting times, quality and success rates.

Prior to installing the Thermo Scientific instrumentation, the postnatal laboratory experienced challenges with manual coverslipping and inconsistent speed in its manual banding process. The division needed an automated solution to increase throughput of blood samples, ensuring more efficient sample turnaround, slide preparation and reporting of results.

Jim Colgan, principal scientist for the postnatal laboratory, explains: We selected the Thermo Scientific instrumentation for its excellent efficiency and capability to meet even the most demanding applications. Overall, with the new instrumentation our laboratory workflows have been considerably enhanced, and throughput of blood samples has been accelerated while ensuring optimum results.

For the West of Scotland Regional Cytogenetics Service, automating its procedures with the postnatal laboratory has led to a significant improvement in reporting times, quality and success rates. It has also decreased the poor quality rate for both routine and urgent blood samples.