Methods for processing a pathology specimen

A method of processing pathology specimens, the method comprising:

• receiving a tissue sample cassette containing a plurality of tissue samples, each tissue sample disposed in a separate compartment of the tissue sample cassette and covered by a gel;
• scanning, by a receiving station of a pathology information system, a cassette identifier embedded on the tissue sample cassette;
• printing, by a cassette printer, a patient label on the tissue sample cassette based on information from the scanned cassette identifier;
• removing a lid from the tissue sample cassette;
• scanning, by a digital imaging system, the tissue sample cassette with the lid removed;
• uploading, from the digital imaging system, a digital image of the scanned tissue sample cassette to a gross description module of the pathology information system;
• color coding, for each tissue sample in the tissue sample cassette, one end of the gel covering the tissue sample a color and a second end of the gel covering the tissue sample a different color;
• placing a sponge over the compartments and closing the lid of the tissue sample cassette;
• placing the closed tissue sample cassette into a tissue processor to dehydrate contents of the tissue sample cassette;
• removing the tissue sample cassette from the tissue processor;
• removing the gel covered tissue samples from the removed tissue sample cassette;
• trimming a portion of the gel from each tissue sample;
• placing the trimmed tissue samples and an orientation indicator in an embedding mold;
• covering the trimmed tissue samples and the orientation indicator within the embedding mold with liquid paraffin;
• solidifying the liquid paraffin to create a paraffin block with the tissue samples and the orientation indicator embedded;
• trimming the paraffin block;
• mounting the trimmed paraffin block to a slide having a patient identifier;
• scanning, with a scanning system, the slide to create a digital image of each tissue sample;
• and
• saving, by the pathology information system, the digital images as image files based on information from the patient identifier.