Acta clinica Croatica, Vol. 44 No. 2, 2005.
Conference paper
Time Consuming and Decision Making Process in Frozen Section Surgical Pathology Service
Marina Kos
Božo Krušlin
Hrvoje Čupić
Mladen Belicza
Abstract
Frozen section (intraoperative biopsy) is one of the most important and most difficult procedures that a pathologist performs during his/her practice. It is performed daily at most pathology departments and requires experience, the capacity to make quick decisions under pressure, the knowledge of clinical medicine, and awareness of the limitations of the method. The aim of the study was to determine the number of frozen sections according to surgical departments and diagnoses at Surgical Pathology Division of the Ljudevit Jurak University Department of Pathology, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital in Zagreb, during the 1998-2004 period. Data were retrieved from the Thanatos program for data archiving, analyzed and divided according to departments (ENT, general surgery, neurosurgery, urology, gynecology, and others) and diagnoses (benign tumor, malignant tumor, other conditions and description). During the 1998-2004 period, the relative frequency of frozen sections rose steadily from 6.25% in 1998 to 7.78% in 2004 (p<0.001). A statistically significant increase was noticed in the number of intraoperative biopsies from the departments of neurosurgery (p<0.001), urology (p<0.001), gynecology (p<0.01) and other departments (p<0.001), while the number of intraoperative biopsies from the surgical department decreased significantly (p<0.001). The difference in the number of intraoperative biopsies from ENT department was not significant. The diagnosis of benign tumors was significantly more frequent in 1998 than in 2004 (p<0.05), and so was the diagnosis of metastases (p<0.001). The number of descriptive answers was significantly higher in 2004 (p<0.001), but the difference in the number of diagnosed malignant tumors and other conditions was not significant. The number of samples examined on frozen section ranged from 1 to 14, the mean number of samples being 1.2 to 1.8. The number of routine, paraffin embedded biopsies that rose through the analyzed period was followed by the increased number of frozen sections. The significant increase in the relative frequency of descriptive diagnoses could mainly be attributed to the intraoperative examination of lymph nodes that proved to be free from tumor.
Keywords
Frozen section; Surgical pathology
Hrčak ID:
15395
URI
Publication date:
1.6.2005.
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