The National Cancer Grid (NCG) in India is a collaborated cancer care network with primary
mandate of working towards uniformity in all arms of cancer care by adopting evidence-
based management guideline recommendations, that can be implementable across medical
centres. Emergence of varied prognostic and therapeutic markers has gained the forefront in
oncology diagnostics for providing accurate diagnosis and requires a concierge to ensure
uniformity and quality in testing and reporting of results.
With this vision in mind, EQAS program was initiated for surgical pathology and named as
‘NCG-EQAS’ and ‘Molecular Pathology Quality Assurance Program (MPQAP) EQAS’
for molecular tests in solid tumors.
NCG EQAS has been setup in the year 2017 by Dept of Pathology, Tata Memorial Hospital
(TMH) that aims to work towards one practice for all in surgical pathology testing procedures
and to ensure uniformity across laboratories irrespective of economic constraints.
Education is important aspect of each Run report and we take into account the lack of
infrastructure in many centers while issuing final reports. All the protocols are as per the
standardization carried out at our laboratory.
Molecular Pathology Quality Assurance Program (MPQAP) EQAS started in the year 2019
with a purpose to provide external quality assessment to molecular diagnostic tests in solid
tumors, It is first initiative EQAS program in India specifically for solid tumor diagnostics
instigated by Molecular Pathology division of Dept of Pathology, TMH.
MPQAP offers services extending from pre-analytics, analytics and post analytics by Method
based Proficiency testing (MBPT) approach that assess the skills of participating laboratory
to detect genetic alterations and differentiating false positive and false negative results.
EQAS cycles for various molecular tests using FISH, PCR, RT-PCR and Sequencing based
platforms, educational activities and peer reviewed assessment from expertise with
interactive sessions are part of our service program.
MP-QAP aims to develop a forum to address the issues related to execution, analysis and
reporting of molecular assays. It looks forward to build national guideline data base with
objective to implement guidelines in dealing with quality aspects of molecular testing.
Further we intend to get accredited from National Accreditation Board for Testing &
Calibration of Laboratories (NABL) for ISO 17043:2010 certified PT provider.
Both programs are presently in and being run by Tata Memorial Hospital, with extending
services to neighbouring countries as well.
For more details regarding services offers visit https://tmc.gov.in/ncg/index.php/ncg-eqas,