Frozen section diagnosis of ovarian neoplasms. An audit

Abstract

From October 1987 to September 1991, frozen sections were performed on 159 ovarian lesions at the Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, constituting 8.4 per cent of all frozen sections. The objective of the frozen section was assessment of the malignancy of the ovarian tumour (91 per cent), determination of the extent of metastatic disease (7 per cent) and exclusion of bilaterality in certain ovarian tumours to avoid castration (2 per cent). The overall accuracy of frozen sections was 92 per cent. There were 9 false negative diagnoses (6 per cent) and 3 grading errors (2 per cent). No false positive diagnoses were made. Among the incorrect diagnoses, 10 (6 per cent) were due to inappropriate sampling by the pathologist and 2 (1 per cent) were caused by misinterpretation. All errors involved the distinction between benign, borderline and malignant epithelial tumours. We believe that periodic assessments of frozen sections should be part of a quality assurance programme.