Histology safety: now and then

Histology safety usually focuses on general laboratory issues, but this article concentrates on the hazards affecting the individual histotech and their evolution in the last half a century. Using the information from a survey especially designed for the occasion, the hazards were divided into 4 groups, and their prevalence was expressed as percentages for national and foreign laboratories. All the laboratories received a "safety index" (SI) with an average value of 0.77 +/- 0.11 for 63 national laboratories and 0.69 +/- 0.13 for 22 foreign laboratories, these 2 averages being statistically different (P < .02). The historical evolution of the SI required answering the same questionnaire retrospectively, and so it was done for 17 laboratories with an SI average of 0.27 +/- 0.12 for 1955/1989 and 0.77 +/- 0.13, almost 3 times larger for 1990/2007, with improvement of all safety issues. The technological, organizational, and regulatory advances before 1989 showed an unremarkable effect on the SI, and the only circumstance considered as the driving force behind the almost triple increment of the SI during 1990/2007 was the awareness that the AIDS epidemic instilled in the minds and consciences of the medical laboratory personnel in general. Even after almost tripling the average SI value in 2007, national histology laboratories obtained a grade average of "C+" only, leaving room for improvement.