Pathology Unit

Our Staff

The Pathology Unit is an integral part of al mokhtabar medical laboratories and as such, employs the some of the most highly qualified staff in Egypt.

Our pathology unit is headed by Prof. Dr Ahmed Abdel El Aziz, Professor of Pathology at Cairo University. Dr. Ahmed’s responsibilities include: interpretation & diagnosis of cases, intra-lab consultation & diagnosis of referred inter-lab consultation cases.

The unit also employs 10 professional histopathologists, with 5 of them with PHD’s and the rest have a Masters degree. Our histopathologists are responsible for gross pathological dissection & description and interpretation & diagnosis of cases.

In addition to our medical team, we also use the experience of 6 well trained histopathology technicians, whose responsibilities include processing, embedding, cutting and staining.

Our Equipment

Every pathology unit needs the input of a professional staff and the support of the right equipment & materials for the best output. Our lab includes different areas to fulfill the different requirements of every stage of specimen preparation to diagnosis.

Surgical specimen cutting areas fulfill international safety guidelines and the latest apparatus, is used in processing, embedding and cutting.

Our immunohistochemistry area is supplied with an automated system called Vantana (Roche Diagnostics) an automated cytology screening unit.

Our Services

We offer a wide array of specialized services including:

1. Surgical Pathology – biopsies & surgical specimens diagnosed on daily basis including:

• General surgical pathology
• Dermatology
• Gastrointestinal
• Liver biopsy  - hepatopathology subspeciality which is carried out by a specialized hepatopathologist trained in UK
• Genitourinary
• Gynecology
• Kidney pathology
• Lymph node hematopathology
• Orthopedic
• Pediatric
• Pulmonary

2. Histopathology subspecialties
3. Fine Needle Aspirate/Cytology which includes:

• Gynecologic Pap smears
• Fine Needle Aspiration of superficial masses & deep seated organs
• All body fluids
• Bronchial smear/ brushings and washings
• Sputum cytology
• Gastrointestinal brushing
• Urine cytology

4. Immunohistochemistry:

• Automated procedure
• Large battery of imported antibodies to cellular components
• Specific tumor markers
  1. Diagnostic, prognostic & therapeutic applications
  2. Specially done for Soft Tissue Tumors, Metastatic Tumors, Lymphoma, Neuroendocrine Tumors & Undifferentiated Neoplasms

5. Screening Tests:

• Pap smear for cervical cancer
• Automated cytology done on saliva & urine

6. Consultation:

• Intra-laboratory consultation
  1. Histological diagnosis of every case is routinely done by one of our consultant histopathologist & revised by the head of the unit
  2. Query cases are always examined under the multi-head microscope & discussed by our consultants 
• Inter-laboratory consultation
  1. Second opinion on query & unusual cases diagnosed elsewhere

Our Quality Control & Safety Measures

al mokhtabar Pathology unit is one of the units that was inspected by the Collage of American Pathologists on April 2010 and received the CAP accreditation. CAP accreditation means that our pathologists follow the international standardized protocols for diagnosis of surgical pathology/cytology and immunohistochemistry cases.

In addition the pathology unit already passed the CAP PT Survey for 2009 and 2010 and received the certificates for these surveys. We follow the CAP instructions concerning the contents of pathology reports which include full patient data, specimen type, gross description, microscopic description, diagnosis, suggestions and recommendations.

In order to satisfy the regulations of CAP, we also store the tissue blocks in a cool, dry place by accession number for ten years, so the location of blocks and material deposition is readily available and institutions needing their blocks returned because of patient, physician or legal requirements can have their blocks returned by request to the pathology unit.