["Quick Return Service" of the surgical pathology].

The "Quick Return Service" of laboratory information would be the service for patients and clinicians that supply the laboratory information the instance that the specimens and the requests of laboratory examinations are accepted by the laboratory on the basis of the hospital information system (HIS) and the high-speed hospital transportation system of the specimens. Is the "Quick Return Service" of the pathological diagnosis possible and necessary? This question led the author to review the technical environments of the pathological diagnosis, especially of the frozen section diagnosis through our experience at the surgical pathology division of the Department of Laboratory Medicine of National Defense Medical College (NDMC) Hospital. Through the review, it appears that the supporting system for surgical pathologists to frozen section diagnosis ("Quick Return Service") is essential. Pathologists often need clinical and radiological information at the pathological diagnosis. For quick gaining of the information by surgical pathologists on the "Quick Return Service", the efficient HIS including hospital PACS (picture archiving and communication system) is necessary. Standardization and quality assurance of images of frozen section are also necessary. The technical environments of telepathology are developing. The interinstitution consultation through the telepathology will be the indispensable help for the "general" surgical pathologists confronting the problematic cases in the small hospitals that are deficient of pathologists. With the help of staff of the surgical pathology division of the NDMC hospital and the technologists of Mitsubishi Electronics, Co, the author has tried to develop the archiving system of frozen section pictures on the digital image management system.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)