Pre-Analytical Errors in Pathology Labs: Root Causes, Rejection Management, and Digital Solutions
A pathology report can be analytically perfect and still be clinically unreliable if the specimen was wrong before it ever reached the analyzer. That is the problem with pre analytical errors in pathology lab operations. They often happen before laboratory staff begin testing—during patient identification, collection, labeling, handling, storage, or transportation. Because these steps involve multiple people and locations, they can be harder to monitor than the analytical process itself. Research has consistently shown how significant the problem is. A widely cited review estimates that 46–68% of laboratory errors occur in the pre-analytical phase . More recent evidence reinforces the point: a 2025 study analyzing approximately 11 million specimens and 37.7 million billable results found that 98.4% of recorded laboratory errors were pre-analytical. Hemolysis alone represented 69.6% of all documented errors in that study. For a busy diagnostic laboratory, preventing these errors is th...