Pathology services

The National Center of Pathology provides a broad spectrum of surgical pathology and cytopathology tests, including specialized services in nephropathology, hematopathology, dermatopathology, muscle pathology, and other areas.

Some facts:

  • The largest pathology service in Lithuania, over 30 years in pathology diagnostics
  • 14 full-time pathologists, 3 geneticists, 3 medical biologists, 30 technicians
  • 10 years (2000-2010) experience of College of American Pathologists  Accreditation
  • Major clients include Vilnius University Hospital Santaros Klinikos and National Cancer Institute, accompanied by other 200 health care enterprises in Lithuania
  • Yearly numbers of pathology diagnostics cases:
    • Surgical Pathology (appr. 49 000 cases)
    • Cytopathology, cervical and diagnostic (approx. 69 000 cases)
    • Molecular Pathology (appr. 5000 cases)
    • Electron Microscopy (appr. 350 cases)
    • Autopsies (appr. 95 cases)
  • Laboratory techniques include:
    • Histology, histochemistry
    • Immunohistochemistry (DAKO and Ventana, > 68 000 tests/year, appr. 200 antibodies)
    • Immunofluorescence on FFPE and frozen tissues
    • FISH for hematology, soft tissue tumors, carcinomas
    • Electron microscopy, mostly for nephropathology (Electron microscopy introduced since 2008 and performed in appr. ½ native Kd Bx)
    • Tissue microarrays (TMA)
    • Laser capture microdissection (LCM)
    • Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (HPV, STD)
    • Real-time PCR (KRAS, NRAS, BRAF, EGFR)
    • Next Generation Sequencing (detection of 22 genes: EGFR, ALK, ERBB2, ERBB4, FGFR1, FGFR2, FGFR3, MET, DDR2, KRAS, PIK3CA, BRAF, AKT1, PTEN, NRAS, MAP2K1, STK11, NOTCH1, CTNNB1, SMAD4, FBXW7, TP53)
    • Aperio digital microscopy platform
    • TissueGnosticsTM system for bright field and fluorescence image acquisition and analysis.
    • Biobank (project-driven)
  • Pathology information system PathIS®, developed in cooperation with the Baltic Information Technology Institute (data since 1994)
  • Research partner at the Santara Valley, providing Digital and Molecular Laboratory research services

Under - and post-graduate pathology training for Vilnius University.