TIME CONSUMING AND DECISION MAKING PROCESS IN FROZEN SECTION SURGICAL PATHOLOGY SERVICE

SUMMARY Frozen section (intraoperative biopsy) is one of the most important and most difficult proce-dures that a pathologist performs during his/her practice. It is performed daily at most pathology depart-ments and requires experience, the capacity to make quick decisions under pressure, the knowledge of clinical medicine, and awareness of the limitations of the method. The aim of the study was to determine the number of frozen sections according to surgical departments and diagnoses at Surgical Pathology Divi-sion of the Ljudevit Jurak University Department of Pathology, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital in Zagreb, during the 1998-2004 period. Data were retrieved from the Thanatos program for data archiving, analyzed and divided according to departments (ENT, general surgery, neurosurgery, urology, gynecology, and others) and diagnoses (benign tumor, malignant tumor, other conditions and description). During the 1998-2004 period, the relative frequency of frozen sections rose steadily from 6.25 % in 1998 to 7.78 % in 2004 (p<0.001). A statistically significant increase was noticed in the number of intraoperative biopsies from the departments of neurosurgery (p<0.001), urology (p<0.001), gynecology (p<0.01) and other departments (p<0.001), while the number of intraoperative biopsies from the surgical department de-creased significantly (p<0.001). The difference in the number of intraoperative biopsies from ENT de-partment was not significant. The diagnosis of benign tumors was significantly more frequent in 1998 tha