Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Am J Clin Pathol. 2013 Sep;140(3):363-9. doi: 10.1309/AJCPHUE5ENZDU4DJ.
Communication in various medical settings is subject to misinterpretation. The frozen section (FS) diagnosis in patient care is dependent on successful communication between pathologists and surgeons. However, very few studies looking at FS errors analyzed postanalytic communication issues.
A total of 300 consecutive cases, in which an FS was performed and corresponding surgical note was available, were studied. The FS diagnosis and surgeon's interpretation were recorded for all cases. Discrepancies were classified as major (clinical impact) or minor (no clinical impact).
We found 8 (2.7%) miscommunications, all with only minor clinical impact. These were attributed mainly to the surgeon's misinterpretation of a deferred diagnosis. Also contributing to miscommunication was the pathologist's use of nonspecific terminology such as "favor" or "scattered."
We found that the rate of miscommunicated FS diagnoses was low at our institution during the period of our study. However, the rate of miscommunication was similar to the much more widely recognized problem of sampling error.
在各种医疗环境中，沟通都可能被误解。在患者护理中，冰冻切片（FS）诊断依赖于病理学家和外科医生之间的成功沟通。然而，很少有研究分析 FS 错误的分析后沟通问题。
共研究了 300 例连续病例，这些病例均进行了 FS 并提供了相应的手术记录。对所有病例的 FS 诊断和外科医生的解释进行了记录。差异分为主要（临床影响）或次要（无临床影响）。
我们发现 8 例（2.7%）沟通错误，均仅有轻微的临床影响。这些主要归因于外科医生对延迟诊断的错误解释。此外，病理学家使用非特异性术语，如“倾向于”或“分散”，也促成了沟通错误。
我们发现，在我们研究期间，该机构 FS 诊断的沟通错误率较低。然而，沟通错误的发生率与更广泛认识的取样误差问题相似。
