Deep inside Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, there’s a place I’m calling “The Vault.” It’s where breast tissue and other specimens are preserved for years, giving doctors another opportunity to study them if a patient develops another cancer. They can also be used for testing a new treatment when someone develops a second cancer.
Shadi Qasem, MD, MBA, FCAP, chief of pathology for the Baptist Health system, including Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center in Jacksonville, showed me the vault and explained why it matters.
“Everyone’s specimen ends up here for 10 years,” Dr. Qasem explained.
The collection includes hundreds of thousands of tissue blocks and slides. Those samples are important years after a patient’s original diagnosis.
For example, if someone has breast cancer and later develops lung cancer, doctors may be able to test the original tissue again. That can help determine the appropriate treatment for the second cancer.
“It determines what treatment is for a second cancer. That is critical,” Dr. Qasem said.
Read the full article: Did You Know? Hospitals Store Your Tissue Samples for 10 Years in a Pathology Vault