Correlation of Frozen Section and Routine Histopathological Findings in Brain Tumors

Abstract

Introduction: One of the most crucial part of the line of management of patients having space occupying lesions of central nervous system is intra-operative consultation. In order to maintain the integrity of quality assurance in surgical pathology, correlation between intra operative frozen section diagnoses with final histopathological diagnosis is fundamental. Aim of Study: 1) To learn the correlation between routine histopathology and frozen section in the diagnosis of various brain tumors. 2) To find out incidence of various types of tumors of Central Nervous System. 3) To study the comparative sensitivity of frozen section and routine histopathology for the diagnosis of SOLs of CNS. 4) To evaluate the diagnostic parameters of intra operative frozen sections in suspected intracranial tumors that are to be reported with frozen section followed by routine histopathology Materials and Methods: Total 130 cases of brain tumors in tertiary care centre from January 2016 to February 2017 were studied retrospectively. These cases were reported both on frozen section and paraffin section. The diagnosis on frozen sections were compared with the final assessment to assess the concordance and discordance rates between both as well as to find out the incidence of various lesions of CNS. Results: In present study, the overall concordance rate was 81.5%, discordance rate was 18.5%.In cases where the frozen section and the routine histopathology diagnosis were discordant the final diagnosis was derived from the findings of routine histopathological examination. Astrocytoma (44.6%) was the most common brain tumor. Concordance rate varies and lowers in low-grade tumors than in high-grade tumors.