title: The reliability of frozen section diagnosis.
abstract: We undertook a retrospective study of 594 consecutive diagnosis by frozen section. Clinically important discrepancies were found between the frozen section and final diagnoses in 18 (3%), and unimportant discrepancies in 35 (6%). The reasons for the discrepancies were misinterpretation in 22 (41%), the presence of focal lesions in 29 (55%), and technical errors in 2 (4%). There were 4 false positive and 18 false negative diagnoses, giving a sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 99%. Diagnoses from frozen sections were deferred in 40 cases (7%). These results are in accordance with those of similar studies, and confirm that frozen section is a highly accurate, but not infallible, method of rapid histological diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Ullevaal Hospital, University of Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: S H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Torp
authors.forename: F J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Skjørten
mesh_terms: D000008:Abdominal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D001706:Biopsy; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005629:Frozen Sections; D006801:Humans; D008867:Microtomy; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014565:Urogenital Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology