Review Of Colorectal Biopsy Turnaround Times Over Six Months At Warwick Hospital

Review Of Colorectal Biopsy Turnaround Times Over Six Months At Warwick Hospital

Arafa Adam AbdAllah Bakr , Lina Moawad, Naresh Chachlani
General surgery Department,Warwick Hospital, Warwick, United Kingdom; Department of Histopathology,Warwick Hospital, Warwick, United Kingdom

Introduction: Colorectal cancer is a multi-factorial disease. It is the third most frequently diagnosed cancer, and the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Pathological assessment of specimens plays crucial part in management, family counselling and prognosis of the disease. Turnaround time (TAT) is the total time taken from when a specimen is received in the laboratory to when the final report is issued to the requester.

Aim: To measure the TAT for colorectal specimens over a 6-month period with comparison of our TAT against national guidelines to Identify areas of the delays in order to propose solutions for improvement, endoscopic and follow up biopsies were excluded.

Methods: Retrospective study on 48 patients who underwent colorectal biopsies between July 2024 till December 2024. E record, Ice and Asignar was used to collect patient demographic, biopsy types, diagnosis categories, and time intervals related to specimen handling and reporting.

Results: Mean age was 70 years with female to male ration of 1:1.28, 34 of them were malignant (31of them had adenocarcinoma), 10 had benign and 4 per-malignant. Average specimen receive time was 1.5 days which was excluded from the TAT, range for specimen processing time was between 1-28 days, mean time for diagnostic work up was 4.5 days. 61.5% of urgent and priority cases met the two-week reporting target.

Conclusion: significant number of cases did not meet the RCPath recommended targets; therefore, stricter internal tracking, optimized workflows and staffing, and routine audits are advised to reduce delays and achieve turnaround targets.

Keywords: NA