How to Track Tissues, Cassettes & Slides in Pre-Clinical Pathology Studies

The modern pre-clinical pathology study may generate hundreds or even thousands of individual “samples” that must be processed and managed in a GLP compliant manner. This is a major undertaking and one that most companies carryout with some type of paper-based system. Computerizing such tracking and record keeping eliminates these paper records, allows samples to be located more easily across multiple laboratories and sites and provides for a very comprehensive audit trail and “chain of custody” for each item.

Matrix Track-IT Benefits

Matrix Track-IT benefits can be summarized as:

• There is no custom source code to create, document and debug, the development process is much faster and less expensive.
  
• The power of the configuration tools allow for fast iterations on the prototype before the final design is accepted by the users. As the users are encouraged to express their thoughts and findings about each revision of the configuration, the users obtain a final design that is more acceptable to them and that they see as more “user friendly” and “easy to learn”.
  
• Each installation and application uses the same code, therefore support is much easier and less expensive.
  
• In large organizations, the IT group can become very fluent with the software such  that they are able to deploy it themselves to meet varied business needs. One software program with many uses! The software is designed for business changes.
  
• Only one validation to perform, many applications with all the regulatory compliance and audit trails included to meet the strictest regulations / regulatory requirements.
  
• Data entry can be improved by the optional use of barcodes and scanners. 

Please email us at matrix@autoscribe.co.uk to discuss your requirements further and to book your personal demonstration.

Matrix Track-IT supports your entire process including; entry of study design, allocation of animals to each dosage group, scheduling of tissue collection, assigning tissues to cassettes, creating slides from cassettes and eventually maintaining your study inventory, including your slide archive. It records completion of each task at every step, who did it, when and any notes recorded.

Tissues may be collected, labeled, trimmed and placed into storage. Cassettes may be labeled, loaded with tissues, embedded, and stored. Slides are labeled (usually with a barcode etched with a laser), loaded according to your rules, stained and sent to the pathologists for reading. Once they are read, they may be tracked back and checked into the archive. Matrix Track-IT supports instances where samples from more than one cassette are contained on one slide and the reverse, where samples form one cassette may be contained on several sides. 

A note may be attached to any tissue, cassette or slide at any step of the process. Additionally, an image may be attached, that shows the exact location of a lesion found in the tissue. 

“Special requests” for samples required in addition to those required by the study protocol such as re-cuts or different staining may be entered at any time and tracked along with all the other samples in the study. 

Once all the samples have been collected and all the slides have been read, then Matrix Track-IT allows for a complete study inventory to be carried out prior to placing all of the samples into storage. 

In many instances, the study design – dosage groups, subject ID’s are contained in some other “in-life” system and this information can be passed electronically into Matrix Track-IT, so as to reduce manual data entry and associated errors.

The Product 

Matrix Track-IT software from Autoscribe is a single, very flexible, software product that allows the exact same program and code to be configured to the needs of these different applications. Totally different fields and labels may be created using the uniquely powerful Matrix “OneTime Configuration” tools, so as to support these various applications, all using exactly the same source code. Different localizations and languages are also supported. The system may be deployed over the desktop and/or web delivering exactly the same user experience without writing any custom code or esoteric scripts. OneTime Configuration ensures that the configuration of workflows, screens and menus needs to be done once only for both the desktop and web interfaces.

Supported Platforms 

¨       Databases: Oracle or SQL Server 2005

¨       Clients: Windows XP desktop or deployed via Citrix or Terminal Services

¨       Internet / Intranet: IE 6 or later with IIS

Please email us at matrix@autoscribe.co.uk to discuss your requirements further and to book your personal demonstration.