Evaluation of Intraoperative Frozen Sections: Experience in a Tertiary Care Hospital (original) (raw)

Aim: Intraoperative frozen section analysis play an important role in modern day surgical practice. The quality assurance of this technique is vital as it is a major tool in guiding the patient surgical management. The present study was conducted to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of frozen section results and to find out the common reasons of misdiagnosis. Method: This is a retrospective study done by retrieving the data from frozen section and routine histology registers over a period of two years. Total 163 cases were received for frozen section analysis in that period. Out of these 2 cases were deferred and analysis was done on 161 cases. Results: Out of 163 cases, results were deferred in 2 cases for routine histology leading to a deferral of 1.23%. The diagnostic accuracy was found to be 90.68% with a false positive diagnosis of malignancy in 4.97% and false negative benign diagnosis in 2.49% cases. The major causes of misdiagnosis were found to be interpretation error (73.33%), followed by sampling error (20%) and scanty tissue for analysis (6.67%). The interpretation error was mostly due to the freezing artefacts. Conclusion: A thorough clinical and radiological knowledge, proper sampling and processing as well as interpretation by experienced pathologists are the prerequisites for accurate diagnosis in frozen section study.