Tissue adequacy for ancillary studies beyond frozen section: a potential method for improving diagnostic and...

The evolving nature of medicine has created new challenges in numerous aspects of the practice of pathology. The development of less invasive procedures, the generation of better diagnostic tools, and the recognition of prognostic markers have contributed to these challenges. Between 42.7% and 65.0% of intraoperative consultations are performed to identify or type a neoplastic process. We instituted a reporting requirement on our intraoperative consultations to provide an assessment of adequacy. The assessment of adequacy was subjective by its very nature and was based on the possible uses for the submitted tissue. A total of 3086 intraoperative consultations were performed over a 13-month period. Sixty-two cases were determined to be insufficient for ancillary studies; 52 of these cases were remedied by the surgeon during the original diagnostic procedure. We have instituted a new assessment for intraoperative consultations to optimize the tissue obtained and reduce the need for additional procedures.