RESULTS OF QUALITY CONTROL IN PATHOLOGY THROUGH THE EXTERNAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT PROGRAM IMPLEMENTED IN VIETNAM DURING THE PERIOD 2021 – 2025

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External quality assessment (EQA) is an important tool to control quality tests. In the period from 2007 to 2025, the Center for standardization and quality control in medical laboratory (CSQL) has continuously developed and implemented a wide range of EQA programs, ranging from routine to specialized schemes, with the aim of supporting laboratories in improving testing quality. The number of laboratories participating in EQA by CSQL has rapidly increased from 50 participants (2007) to 3,800 participants (2025). The Pathology EQA program has been implemented since 2021. After five years of implementation, Pathology laboratories have shown increasing attention in participation as part of their effort to enhance analytical quality at their institutions.

This study aims to evaluate the quality control results of pathological examination in the period 2021-2025 through data analysis from the Pathological EQA Program implemented by CSQL. This study is based on EQA data collected from all Pathology laboratories participating in the program. The main indicators reflecting the quality control results include number of participants, number of histopathologies analyzed and evaluated the proportion of acceptable analytical results and frequency of recorded errors types (e.g. diagnostic errors, technical errors). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and trend analysis methods.

The research results show that the number of Pathology Departments nationwide participating has increased every year since 2021 with 09 Pathology Departments participating, increasing to 40 Pathology Departments participating in 2025. The percentage of participating hospital models including specialized hospitals 39%, general hospitals 39%, private general hospitals 11% and private laboratories 11%. The number of histopathology groups evaluated increased from 7 to 18 different tissue groups including general and specialized fields, the number of samples (number of cases) analyzed is 18 (in 2021) increased to 156 cases (in 2025). Statistics show that some types of tissues are commonly deployed according to the model and characteristics of each Pathology laboratory (including stomach, gastric biopsy, uterus, breast, thyroid, colon, liver, lung, brain, ...).