[Evaluation of the effect of pathology slide review on clinical practice in an oncology center]

Abstract

Our aim was to evaluate the clinical impact of pathology review in an oncology center, in which review is not performed for every patient. This retrospective study involved 100 consecutive patients, whose slides were reviewed in our center. A standardized data sheet was filled out by oncologists for each patient. Pathology review was considered as responsible for a major (35%), moderate (40%), or mild or no (25%) modification of clinical practice. Modification concerned either initial investigations, treatment or medical follow up, and was independent of the reason for which review was performed. Eleven patients underwent a second biopsy. Whatever the possible discrepancies between initial and review diagnosis, our results show that pathological review has a major influence on clinical practice in patients with cancer.