Remote frozen section service in Norway

Remote frozen section service has been in regular use in northern Norway since 1990. Two local hospitals are equipped with a motorized video microscope remote controlled from the workstation at the University Hospital. The video images are transmitted via a two ways audio and video telenetwork. This dynamic telepathology system utilizes a videocodec for image compression and a transfer rate of 384 Kbit/s. The video images of surgical specimens and frozen sections are displayed on monitors at both the sender and receiver site. From 1990 until 1. July 1994 tissue from 100 patients have been examined. Breasts and thyroid tissues accounts for 74 of cases. Correct benign versus-malignant diagnosis has been given obtained in 89 cases. One false positive, three false negative and seven deferred diagnosis regarding malignancy have occurred. The false positive diagnosis had no major consequences for the patient. Two of the deferred diagnosis turned out to be malignant. The average time taken for examination of each frozen section was 12 minutes (range, 3 to 45 min). Our concept of remote frozen section service can be recommended for hospitals without a local service in surgical pathology.