Cytopathology — NABL criteria
NABL 112A, section 7.6 — Technical Requirements, Discipline Wise
Checked against NABL 112A (Issue 01, 18-Dec-2024) · page updated 23 September 2026
NABL 112A carries only a short discipline-specific section for Cytopathology. That is not an oversight and it does not mean fewer obligations — almost everything that governs this discipline sits in the general technical requirements that apply to every laboratory: quality control, method verification, calibration, competency and reporting. Those are the records listed at the foot of this page.
What NABL 112A requires of this discipline
- Guided FNA shall be performed by a team composed of Radiologist & Pathologist.
- Gynaecologic Cytology: • Details of menstrual phase and hormonal status • All exfoliative cytology slides shall be stained by Papanicolaou technique.
- For Gynaecological screening program, ASCUS/SIL ratio as per Bethesda criteria shall be followed.
- All positive reports shall be reviewed and released by a pathologist.
Verbatim excerpts from NABL 112A - Specific Criteria for Accreditation of Medical Laboratories, Issue 01, 18-Dec-2024, section 7 (Technical Requirements - Discipline Wise). Downloaded from nabl-india.org 2026-09-23. Download the current version from NABL →
Records this discipline still has to produce
The discipline criteria above are additional. Every accredited laboratory, in every discipline, must still maintain the general record set:
- NABL Internal Audit Checklist for Medical Laboratories
- Internal Quality Control (IQC) Record and Levey–Jennings Chart
- EQA / Proficiency Testing Participation Record
- Method Verification Record
- Method Validation Record
- Measurement Uncertainty (MU) Record
- Comparability of Results Record
- Quality Indicators Record
- Sample Rejection Log and Rejection Criteria
- Primary Sample Collection Manual
Other disciplines
- Clinical Biochemistry Cl. 7.1
- Clinical Pathology Cl. 7.2
- Haematology & Immunohaematology Cl. 7.3
- Microbiology & Infectious Disease Serology Cl. 7.4
- Histopathology Cl. 7.5
- Flow Cytometry Cl. 7.7
- Molecular Diagnostics Cl. 7.8
- Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Cl. 7.9
- Cytogenetics Cl. 7.10
- Point of Care Testing (POCT) Cl. 7.11
HealthFlow is not NABL accredited and is not an accreditation body. Using it does not make a laboratory accredited or compliant. These pages describe what the standard requires; meeting it is the laboratory's own responsibility.
What the software contributes is evidence produced by normal work: turnaround time measured per test, reports versioned and locked on authorisation with dual signatures, every report access written to an append-only audit trail enforced at the database and retained two years, and full export whenever you want it.