Portneuf Medical Center, serving Southeastern Idaho, whose core mission is “World Class Care, Every patient, Every time,” and Bingham Memorial Hospital, one of the leading and award-winning healthcare providers in Eastern Idaho, along with Virchow Medical Inc., the manufacturer of the Crow’s Nest Biopsy Catchment System and operator of the Virchow VaultTM Liquid Specimen Biorepository, announced a step forward in the care of solid tumor cancer patients.

Since June 2025, a select number of solid tumor cancer patients undergoing routine core needle biopsy procedures at Portneuf and Bingham have received a new additional benefit: The biopsy needles used in their procedures were not simply thrown away — but were instead placed in a Crow’s Nest Biopsy Catchment System. The device is a way to collect the dislodged tumor cells that are normally lost as medical waste after a biopsy, and instead use them to make an additional high-quality specimen that can be utilized in follow-up molecular testing.

Since many patients who undergo biopsy procedures later find out that the harvested piece of tissue is not large enough to run all the tests that the doctors want to run, having the additional specimen generated in this way, without taking anything additional from the patient, represents a new way to potentially improve the patient experience. Extracted DNA from salvaged cells may prevent the need for unnecessary and burdensome therapeutic procedures. Most oncologists would prefer that every biopsied patient has the advantage of genomics sequencing. With this pilot program, the first in the Pacific Northwest, Portneuf and Bingham are leading the way toward addressing the shortage of biopsied tissue specimen supply at a time when demand for genomic tests is dramatically increasing.

“We recognize that precision medicine is universally preferable to chemotherapy for our cancer patients,” said Jake Erickson, Chief Executive Officer of Bingham Healthcare. “Our hospitals are early adopters of technology that has the potential to improve patient outcomes, especially technologies that can do that without taking anything additional from the patient.”

“We commend the pathologists, oncologists, and interventional radiologists at Portneuf Medical Center and Bingham Memorial Hospital,” said Alexander Arrow, MD, CEO of Virchow Medical, Inc. “We are honored to support their innovative clinical initiative, and supply devices that may improve outcomes by sparing more cancer patients from chemotherapy.”

Extending molecular testing and targeted therapy to more patients through integrated technology

After generating the additional specimen from the residual cells that would normally have been wasted, the pathologists serving both hospitals have been routing the new specimens to be tested on an Idylla analyzer, supplied by Biocartis, NV. In that way, genomic testing results can be available as soon as the same day as the biopsy procedure, potentially allowing some patients to begin targeted therapy immediately, instead of waiting the typical 3-10 days lab turnaround time. Also, they can be re-tested for the benefit of the patients at any time thereafter because they are stored in the Virchow Vault, a unique biobank that stores liquid specimens generated by users of the Crow’s Nest Biopsy Catchment System.