Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T17:53:30.392Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Quality assurance in histopathology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2011

A. J. Robertson  and
J. Swanson Beck
A. J. Robertson
Affiliation:
Pathology Department, University of Dundee
J. Swanson Beck
Affiliation:
Ninewells Hospital & Medical School, Dundee
Get access

Extract

There is widespread interest in development of approaches to monitoring the quality of the diagnostic service provided by pathology departments. Novel approaches are being developed for analysis of performance, while there is active interest in the selection of diagnostic categories that can be reliably applied in service laboratories. Initial progress has been slow but organisational problems and professional inertia have been largely overcome. The scene is now set for continuing critical appraisal which must lead to improvements in clinical care.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Section B: Biological Sciences , Volume 101: Quality Assurance in Medical Care , 1993 , pp. 263 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Advisory Task Force on Standards to the Audit Steering Committee of the Royal College of Pathologist 1991. Pathology department accreditation in the United Kingdom: a synopsis. Journal of Clinical Pathology 44, 798–802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Society of Cytology: criteria for cytopathology laboratory accreditation (Revised). 1988.Google Scholar
Anderson, R. E. 1984. The autopsy as an instrument of quality assessment. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine 108, 490–3.Google ScholarPubMed
Anderson, R. E. & Hill, R. B. 1989. The current status of the autopsy in academic medical centers in the United States. Pathology Patterns, a biannual supplement to American Journal of Clinical Pathology 92, S31–7.Google ScholarPubMed
Anderson, R. E., Hill, R. B. & Key, C. R. 1989. The sensitivity and specificity of clinical diagnostics during 5 decades: toward an understanding of necessary fallibility. Journal of the American Medical Association 261, 1610–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anon: 1988 Bethesda System for reporting cervical/vaginal cytological diagnoses. Acta Cytologica 33, 567–76.Google Scholar
Association of Clinical Pathologists. 1986. Association of Clinical Pathologists News 10–12.Google Scholar
Beck, J. S. & Members of the Medical Research Council Breast Tumour Panel Associated with the United Kingdom Trial of Early Detection of Breast Cancer. 1985. Observer variability in reporting of breast lesions. Journal of Clinical Pathology 38, 1358–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beilby, J. O. W., Bourne, R., Guillebaud, J. & Steele, S. T. 1982. Paired cervical smears: a method of reducing the false-negative rate in population screening. Obstetrics and Gynaecology 60, 46–8.Google ScholarPubMed
Berkowitz, R. S., Ehrmann, R. L., Lavizzo-Mourey, R. & Knapp, R. C. 1979. Invasive cervical carcinoma in young women. Gynecology and Oncology 8, 311–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
British Society for Clinical Cytology 1986. Recommended Code of Practice for laboratories providing a cytopathology service.Google Scholar
British Society for Clinical Cytology 1990. Cell content of cervical smears. Cytopathology 1, 129–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulletin of the Royal College of Pathologists 1983. 42, 9.Google Scholar
Bulletin of the Royal College of Pathologists 1986. 56, 3–4.Google Scholar
Cameron, H. M. & McGoogan, E. 1981a. A prospective study of 1152 hospital autopsies: I. Inaccuracies in death certification. Journal of Pathology 133, 273–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cameron, H. M. & McGoogan, E. 1981b. A prospective study of 1152 hospital autopsies: II. Analysis of inaccuracies in clinical diagnoses and their significance. Journal of Pathology 133, 285–300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cameron, H. M., McGoogan, E., Clarke, J. & Wilson, B. A. 1977. Trends in hospital necropsy rates: Scotland 1961–74. British Medical Journal 1, 1577–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cameron, H. M., McGoogan, E. & Watson, H. 1980. Necropsy: a yardstick for clinical diagnoses. British Medical Journal 281, 985–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cancer Research Campaign Factsheet 12. 1990. Cancer of the cervix uteri.Google Scholar
Cecchini, S., Palli, D. & Casini, A. 1985. Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia III. An estimate of screening error rates and optimal screening interval. Acta Cytologica 29, 329–33.Google ScholarPubMed
Centers for Disease Control: Autopsy frequency – United States. 1988. MMWR 37, 191–4.Google Scholar
Chana, J., Rhys-Maitland, R., Hon, P., Scott, P., Thomas, C. & Hopkins, A. 1990. Who asks permission for an autopsy? Journal of the Royal College of Physicians in London 24, 185–8.Google ScholarPubMed
Chow, J. W. M. & Dilly, S. A. 1991. Method for auditing turnround time in histopathology related to user requirements. Journal of Clinical Pathology 44, 492–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, M. & Schiff, G. 1984. Declining rate of autopsies. New England Journal of Medicine 310, 1266.Google ScholarPubMed
Collins, D. N. & Patacsil, D. P. Jr. 1986 Proficiency testing in cytology in New York: analysis of a 14 year state program. Acta Cytology 30, 633–42.Google ScholarPubMed
Coppleson, L. W. & Brown, B. 1974. Estimation of the screening error rate from the observed detection rates in repeated cervical cytology. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 119, 953–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cree, I. A., Guthrie, W. Anderson, J. M., Holley, M. P., Hopwood, D., Sanders, D. S. A., Parham, D. M., Lang, S., Lang, J., Beck, J. S., Brown, R. A. & Robertson, A. J. 1992. Departmental audit in Histopathology. Pathology Research and Practice (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curry, H., Thompson, D. W., Dietrich, M., Lipa, M., Massarella, G. R., Taves, I. R., Wood, D. E. & Zuber, E. 1987. Proficiency testing in cytology laboratories in Ontario, Canada: A decade of experience: 1. Introduction and description of the testing model. Acta Cytologica 31, 203–14.Google Scholar
Dankwa, E. K. & Davies, J. D. 1985. Frozen section diagnosis: an audit. Journal of Clinical Pathology 38, 1235–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, J. R., Hindman, W. M., Paplanus, S. H., Tregos, D. C., Wiens, J. L. & Dsuciu, T. N. 1981. Value of duplicate smears in cervical cytology. Acta Cytologica 25, 533–8.Google ScholarPubMed
Department of Health. 1989a. Working for Patients. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Department of Health. 1989b. Medical Audit. Working Paper 6 on the Health Service. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Dorman, H., Koss, L., Hyman, M. P., Penner, D. W., Soule, E. & Hichlin, M. D. 1981. Cervical cytopathology: 1. Peers compare performance. College of American Pathologists – Bulletin, 317–25. Chicago.Google Scholar
Elias, A., Linthorst, G., Bekker, B. & Vooijs, P. G. 1983. The significance of endocervical cells in the diagnosis of cervical epithelial changes. Acta Cytologica 27, 225–9.Google ScholarPubMed
Elkind, A., Eardley, A., Haran, D., Spencer, B. & Smith, A. 1989. Computer managed call and recall for cervical screening: a typology of reasons for non-attendance. Community Medicine 11, 157–62.Google ScholarPubMed
Elston, C. W., Cotton, R. E., Davies, C. J. & Blarney, R. W. 1978. A comparison of the use of the “Trucut” needle and fine needle aspiration cytology in the preoperative diagnosis of carcinoma of the breast. Histopathology 2, 239–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, D. M. D., Hudson, E. A., Brown, C. L., Boddington, M. M., Hughes, H. E., Mackenzie, E. F. D. & Marshall, T. 1986. Terminology in gynaecological cytopathology: Report of the Working Party of the British Society for Clinical Cytology. Journal of Clinical Pathology 39, 933–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Figge, D. C., Bonnington, J. L. & Schweid, A. I. 1970. Cervical cancer after initial negative and atypical vaginal cytology. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 108, 422–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friederici, H. H. R. 1988. Reflections on the postmortem audit. Journal of the American Medical Association 260, 3461–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gambino, S. R. 1984. The autopsy. The ultimate audit. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine 108, 444–5.Google ScholarPubMed
Gay, J. D., Donaldson, L. D. & Goellner, J. R. 1985. False-Negative results in cervical cytologic studies. Acta Cytologica 29, 1043–6.Google ScholarPubMed
Goellner, J. R., Gharib, H., Grant, C. S. & Johnson, D. A. 1987. Fine needle aspiration of the thyroid, 1980–86. Acta Cytologica 31, 587–600.Google Scholar
Goldman, L., Sayson, R., Robbins, S., Cohn, L. H., Bettman, M. & Weisberg, M. 1983. The value of the autopsy in three medical eras. New England Journal of Medicine 308, 1000–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, M. D. & Blundell, J. W. 1991. Audit of necropsies in a British district general hospital. Journal of Clinical Pathology 44, 862–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasson, J. 1972. The autopsy – The key to quality control in medical care. New York Slate Journal of Medicine 72, 2509–10.Google ScholarPubMed
Hasson, J. & Gross, H. 1974. The autopsy and quality assessment of medical care. American Journal of Medicine 56, 137–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hill, R. B. & Anderson, R. E. (Eds) 1988a. Missed diagnoses. Towards an understanding of diagnostic discrepancies. In The autopsy medical practice and public policy, pp. 67–90. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Hill, R. B. & Anderson, R. E. 1988b. Is a valid quality assurance programme possible without the autopsy? Human Pathology 9, 1125–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Histopathology EQA Steering Committee. 1988. Cytopathology external quality assessment. Protocol for a proficiency testing scheme in gynaecological cytopathology. Department of Health.Google Scholar
Howanitz, P. J., Hoffman, G. G. & Zarbo, R. J. 1990. The accuracy of frozen-section diagnoses in 34 hospitals. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine 114, 355–9.Google ScholarPubMed
Husain, O. A. N. 1976. Quality control in cytological screening for cervical cancer. Tumori 62, 303–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Husain, O. A. N. 1982. Diagnostic errors in cytology in “preclinical” neoplasia of the cervix. In Proceedings of the Ninth Study Group of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 111–32. London pp.Google Scholar
Husain, O. A. N., Butler, E. B. & Woodford, F. P. 1984. Combined external quality assessment of cytology and histology opinions: a pilot scheme for a cluster of five laboratories. Journal of Clinical Pathology 37, 993–1001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inhorn, S. L. & Clarke, E. 1971. A state-wide proficiency testing program in cytology. Acta Cytologica 15, 351–6.Google ScholarPubMed
Kircher, T., Nelson, J. & Burdo, H. 1985. The autopsy as a measure of accuracy of the death certificate. New England Journal of Medicine 313, 1263–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klinkhamer, P. J. J. M., Vooijs, G. P. & de Haan, A. F. J. 1989. Intraobserver and interobserver variability in the quality assessment of cervical smears. Acta Cytologica 33, 215–8.Google ScholarPubMed
Koss, L. G. 1979. Standards of adequacy of cytologie examination of the female genital tract. In Diagnostic Cytology and its Histopathologic Bases (3rd edn), pp. 1173, Vol. 2, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.Google Scholar
Koss, L. 1989. The Papanicolaou test for cervical cancer detection. A triumph and a tragedy. Journal of the American Medical Association 261, 737–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landefeld, C. S., Chren, M. M., Myers, A., Geller, R., Robbins, S. & Goldman, L. 1988. Diagnostic yield of the autopsy in a university hospital and a community hospital. New England Journal of Medicine 318, 1249–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, F. D. & Burnett, R. A. 1987. Quality assurance in histopathology. Journal of Pathology 152, 247–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lessells, A. M. & Simpson, J. G. 1976. A retrospective analysis of the accuracy of immediate frozen section diagnosis in surgical pathology. British Journal of Surgery 63, 327–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luthy, D. A., Briggs, R. M., Buyco, A. & Eschenbach, D. A. 1978. Cervical Cytology. Increased sensitivity with a second cervical smear. Obstetrics and Gynecology 51, 713–7.Google ScholarPubMed
Macgregor, J. E. 1985. Taking uterine cervical smears. In British Society of Clinical Cytology (2nd edn). Aberdeen University Press.Google Scholar
Morell, N. D., Taylor, J. R., Snyder, R. N., Ziel, H. K., Saltz, A. & Willie, S. 1986. False-negative cytology rates in patients in whom invasive cervical cancer subsequently developed. Obstetrics and Gynecology 60, 41–5.Google Scholar
Oneson, R. H., Minke, J. A. & Silverberg, S. G. 1989. Intraoperative pathologic consultation. An audit of 1000 recent consecutive cases. American Journal of Surgical Pathology 13, 237–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen, D. A. & Tighe, J. R. 1975. Quality evaluation in histopathology. British Medical Journal 1, 149–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perner, D. W. 1973. Quality control and quality evaluation in histopathology and cytology. Pathology Annual 8, 1–19.Google Scholar
Ramsay, A. D. 1991. Locally organised medical audit in histopathology. Journal of Clinical Pathology 44, 353–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robertson, A. J., Anderson, J. M., Beck, J. S., Burnett, R. A., Howatson, S. R., Lee, F. D., Lessells, A. M., McLaren, K. M., Moss, S. M., Simpson, J. G., Smith, G. D., Tavadia, H. B. & Walker, F. 1989. Observer variability in histopathological reporting of cervical biopsy specimens. Journal of Clinical Pathology 42, 231–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robertson, A. J., Beck, J. S., Burnett, R. A., Howatson, S. R., Lee, F. D., Lessells, A. M., McLaren, K. M., Moss, S. M., Simpson, J. G., Smith, G. D., Tavadia, H. B. & Walker, F. 1990. Observer variability in histological reporting of transitional cell carcinoma and epithelial dysplasia in bladders. Journal of Clinical Pathology 43, 17–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, C., Klatt, E. & Chandrasoma, P. 1987. Accuracy of frozen section diagnosis in a teaching hospital. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine 111, 514–7.Google ScholarPubMed
Vooijs, G. P., Elias, A. E., van de Graaf, Y. & Veliya, S. 1985. Relationship between the diagnosis of epithelial abnormalities and composition of cervical smears. Acta Cytologica 29, 323–28.Google ScholarPubMed
Vooijs, G. P., van de Graaf, Y., Elias, A. & Poelen-van de Berg, M. 1986. The influence of sample takers on the cellular composition of cervical smears. Acta Cytologica 30, 251–7.Google ScholarPubMed
Wadsworth, A. & Gilbert, R. 1934. Approval of laboratories for pathology in New York State. American Journal of Public Health 24, 1035–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whimster, W. F. 1989. Role of the autopsy in medical audit. The Bulletin of the Royal College of Pathologists 65, 8.Google Scholar
Wood, R. J. & Hillin, M. D. 1977. Rescreening as a quality control procedure in cytopathology. Acta Cytologica 21, 240–6.Google ScholarPubMed
Working for patients. 1989. Scottish Working Paper 2: Medical Audit. Edinburgh: HMSO Publications.Google Scholar
World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe. 1981. External quality assessment in health laboratories. Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Wright, E. A. 1975. Quality control in histopathology. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 68, 619–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yesner, R. 1985. A symposium on the autopsy. In Annual Part I Somers, S. C., Rosen, P. P., Fechner, R. E. (Eds) Norwalk: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Zuk, J. A., Kenyon, W. E. & Myskow, M. W. 1991. Audit in histopathology: description of an internal quality assessment scheme with analysis of preliminary results. Journal of Clinical Pathology 44, 10–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed