Bone tumor radiograph review by pathologists prior to pathologic diagnosis: a receiver operator curve analysis of...

Radiologic-pathologic correlation has long been considered a prerequisite for the accurate diagnosis of bone lesions. We investigated using receiver-operating characteristic analysis the accuracy of histopathologic diagnoses with and without pathologist review of radiographs. While accuracy of diagnosis did improve when the radiographs were reviewed by the pathologist, this increase did not reach statistical significance (P=0.1311). Potential reasons for this finding including case selection and reviewer expertise are discussed. Based on our study, the review of radiographs did not result in a statistically significant difference in accuracy of the pathologic diagnosis of bone tumors. However, our data suggest that there may be a difference particularly in selected cases and among certain observers.