Intraoperative frozen section consultation: an analysis of accuracy in a teaching hospital

ABSTRACT

This is a retrospective quality assurance study of all frozen sections done at The Aga Khan University Hospital during a six year period [1986 to 1991]. There were 1,031 frozen sections out of a cumulative total of 42,985 surgical specimens [2.39%]. Nine hundred and seventy-six [94.66%] were concordant. In 92 [8.9%] fresh specimens were brought from other hospitals of Karachi, in 37 cases [3.58%] the diagnosis was deferred till the evaluation of permanent paraffin sections and 18 [1.74%] were discordant with 7 [0.67%] false positive and 11 [1.06%] false negative. Among the discordant cases, 9 were attributed to misinterpretation, 7 due to sampling errors and 2 due to technical reasons. Some of these errors might have been avoided, but appear to be an irreducible minimum