Extra-departmental anatomic pathology expert consultation inTaiwan: a research grant supported 4-year experience.
BACKGROUND
This report analyzed a research project supported nationwide expert consultation of anatomic pathology in Taiwan.


METHODS
The data were collected from the requisitions and consultation reports of 2,686 cases in this project from 2003 to 2006. The number of cases, tissue origin, additional special stains, turnaround time (TAT), concordance, discordance, referring pathologists, and consultants were analyzed.


RESULTS
Skin, hematopoietic system, and bone and soft tissue were the most common (48.3%) specimens sent for consultation. The tentative diagnosis and consultation diagnosis were discordant in 1,074 (64.3%) cases. Major discrepancy was seen in 205 (12.3%) cases, of which 66.8% were changed from malignant to benign, 21.0% were changed from benign to malignant, whereas 12.2% were changed from one category of malignancy to another. Additional special stains were performed on 38.7% of cases and hematology specimen was the most frequent. The mean TAT was 3.4 days. Pathologists working in institutes having fewer pathologists sent more cases for consultation. The opinion of the estimated annual consultation rate from the pathologists in Taiwan was 0.7%.


CONCLUSIONS
This program was beneficial simply by helping the referring pathologists in the workup and diagnosis. This result made the entire program a reasonable quality improvement program.
Hsu
Chih-Yi
CY
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
Su
Ih-Jen
IJ
Lin
Ming-Chieh
MC
Kuo
Tseng-Tong
TT
Jung
Shih-Ming
SM
Ho
Donald Ming-Tak
DM
D003581:Cytodiagnosis; D006801:Humans; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012109:Research Support as Topic; D013624:Taiwan