RESUMEN
Statement of Problem: Oral biopsy is important in the definite diagnosis of oral and maxillofacial lesions. This procedure as well as other laboratory services is prone to errors affecting the patients' safety
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate pre-analytical biopsy specimen errors in the Oral Pathology Laboratory of Hamedan School of Dentistry, west of Iran
Materials and Method: Ninety-one oral biopsy samples, obtained from departments of oral and maxillofacial surgery [34 samples, 37.3%], oral medicine [22 samples, 24.3%] and periodontics [10 samples, 10.9%], as well as private offices [16 samples, 17.6%] and hospitals [9 samples, 9.9%] were received and evaluated in the Oral Pathology Laboratory of Hamedan School of Dentistry considering pre-analytical errors
Results: The errors in the request forms included unmentioned names of patients [7.7%], age [3.3%], clinical history [4.4%], site of biopsy [10.9%], differential diagnosis [18.7%] and the name of the requesting clinician [8.8%], as well as lack of radiographs [4.4%] and previous biopsy results [2.2%]. Use of inappropriate fixative [5%], and specimen-containers with non-proportional volume [3%], and their small size inlets [3%] was also reported. Non-standard containers were seen in 19% of the cases, and mislabeling errors [31 missed, 2 incomplete defects, and 1 incorrect] in 34% of the cases. Of 105 specimens, 6.67% were small in size, 1.90% superficially removed, and 0.95% had been traumatized. Out of the 5 containers with more than one specimen, 4 containers did not have any markers
Conclusion: Considering the biopsy errors in the study specimens, training and surveillance to reduce the frequency of such errors seems necessary