Frozen-Permanent Section Discrepancy Rate in Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

In this study, we retrospectively reviewed the rate of frozen-permanent section discrepancies in blocks with two frozen section levels compared to  ≥ three levels in oral cavity and oropharyngeal SCCs. A search of the cases with both intraoperative frozen sections and corresponding permanent sections for SCCs in the oral cavity and oropharynx was performed. Frozen sections and permanent slides were compared. The nature of discrepancies w as assigned to one of the following: change in diagnosis, margin status, or distance of the tumor from the margin. The cause of the discrepancy was designated as one of the following: block sampling, gross sampling, interpretation, or technical error. The pathologist experience, frozen section techn ical experience, and intraoperative impact of each discrepancy were also evaluated. A total of 654 frozen and corresponding permanent blocks were assessed. For 532 of the frozen section blocks, two levels were cut, while 122 frozen section blocks had ≥ three levels. Thirty-five frozen-permanen t section discrepancies were observed (5.4% of all blocks). Among these, 2.5% had a possible or definitive intraoperative impact. The percentage of discrepancies in the ≥ three levels group (5.7%) was slightly higher than the two-level group (5.3%), and this difference was not statistically si gnificant. For the two-level group, the overall block sampling error rate was 4.5%. This was not significantly different from the 4.1% block sampling...
Source: Head and Neck Pathology - Category: Pathology Source Type: research