Customized laboratory information management system for a clinical and research leukemia cytogenetics laboratory

We developed a Microsoft Access-based laboratory management system to facilitate database management of leukemia patients referred for cytogenetic tests in regards to karyotyping and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). The database is custom-made for entry of patient data, clinical details, sample details, cytogenetics test results, and data mining for various ongoing research areas. A number of clinical research laboratoryrelated tasks are carried out faster using specific "queries." The tasks include tracking clinical progression of a particular patient for multiple visits, treatment response, morphological and cytogenetics response, survival time, automatic grouping of patient inclusion criteria in a research project, tracking various processing steps of samples, turn-around time, and revenue generated. Since 2005 we have collected of over 5,000 samples. The database is easily updated and is being adapted for various data maintenance and mining needs.