ABSTRACT
Background: Frozen section (FS) is a rapid diagnostic procedure performed on tissues obtained intraoperatively. This method serves useful purposes, such as determining the malignancy or benignancy of a suspected lesion, determining the adequacy of a biopsy of a suspected lesion, confirming the presence or absence of metastasis, and identifying small structures. But it bears many disadvantages and limitations, the most of which is the danger of incorrect diagnosis. Therefore, it is critical to determine efficiency of frozen section performance periodically. This study was performed to determine accuracy of frozen section by correlating the intra-operative frozen section diagnosis with final diagnosis on permanent sections.Methods: In this retrospective study, authors compared the results of frozen section with their final permanent section diagnosis in Government Medical College and Hospital, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India during January 2017 to December 2018.Results: Study comprises 83 patients, of which 73 were female and 10 were male. Out of 83 cases, the diagnosis of 76 cases was concordant with conventional histopathology diagnosis while seven were discordant. This gave overall accuracy rate of 91.57% and discordant rate of 8.43%. The overall sensitivity was 85.71% and specificity was 97.92%. The positive predictive and negative predictive value was 96.77% and 90.38% respectively.Conclusions: The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity of frozen section diagnosis in this study are comparable with most international quality control statistics for frozen sections. The results suggest that the correlation of intra-operative frozen section diagnosis with the final histopathological diagnosis on permanent sections forms an integral part of quality assurance activities in the surgical pathology laboratory and specific measures should be taken to reduce the number of discrepancies.
ABSTRACT
Aim: To assess the utility of frozen section in this recent scenario of improved patient care Methods: In our study we analysed the efficacy of frozen section in 135 cases over a period of one and half years including thyroid, ovary, east, parotid,lymph node, margin assessment in colon malignancy by comparing it with histopathology, considering the latter as gold standard. Results:We found the overall accuracy of frozen section to be 85.37% with a sensitivity of 85.3% and soecificity of 84.6% in thyroid cases. In case of ovarian tumours frozen section had 90.91%sensitivity and 97.96% specificity for malignant tumours. Conclusion:Understanding the limitations, frozen section can be used as a reliable intraoperative tool.
ABSTRACT
Background: Intra-operative consultation by frozen section is a high risk procedure with important consequences. Therefore it is critical to determine efficiency of frozen section performance periodically. This study was performed to determine accuracy of frozen section. Methods: In this prospective study, we compared the results of 100 consecutive cases of frozen section with their final permanent section diagnosis in a teaching hospital of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Wardha, Maharashtra during July 2012 to June 2014. Results: A total of 100 cases were studied on frozen section while one case was deferred for permanent paraffin section (deferral rate 01%). The overall accuracy of frozen section was 96.96% with false positive and false negative rates of 1.01% and 2.02% respectively. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 97.22%, 96.30%, 98.59% and 92.86% respectively. The turn-around time of 18 minutes was observed in the present study. Conclusions: The accuracy of frozen section diagnosis at our institute can be interpreted as comparable with most international quality control statistics for frozen sections. The overall error rate and deferral rates are within the range previously published studies. The results suggest specific measures should be taken to reduce the number of discrepancies.