title: Accuracy of intraoperative frozen section in the diagnosis of ovarian neoplasms: experience at a tertiary oncology center.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Epithelial ovarian neoplasms are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in women. The surgical management of ovarian neoplasms depends on their correct categorization as benign, borderline or malignant. This study was undertaken to evaluate the accuracy of intra-operative frozen section in the diagnosis of various categories of ovarian neoplasms.
  
  
  METHODS
  Intraoperative frozen section diagnosis was retrospectively evaluated in 217 patients with suspected ovarian neoplasms who underwent surgery as primary line of therapy at our institution. This was compared with the final histopathologic diagnosis on paraffin sections.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In 7 patients (3.2%) no opinion on frozen section was possible. In the remaining 210 patients frozen section report had a sensitivity of 100%, 93.5% and 45.5% for benign, malignant and borderline tumors. The corresponding specificities were 93.2%, 98.3% and 98.5% respectively. The overall accuracy of frozen section diagnosis was 91.2%. The majority of cases of disagreement were in the mucinous and borderline tumors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Intraoperative frozen section has high accuracy in the diagnosis of suspected ovarian neoplasms. It is a valuable tool to guide the surgical management of these patients and should be routinely used in all major oncology centers.
authors.affiliation: Gynaecologic Oncology Service, Department of Surgical Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. maheshwariamita@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Amita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Maheshwari
authors.forename: Sudeep
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Shubhada
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kane
authors.forename: Yogesh
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kulkarni
authors.forename: Bhupesh Kumar
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Goyal
authors.forename: Hemant B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Tongaonkar