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.