Context: The "Standards, Options and Recommendations" (SOR) project, started in 1993 is a collaboration between the Federation of the French Cancer Centres (FNCLCC), the 20 French Cancer Centres and specialists from French Public Universities, General Hospitals and Private Clinics. The main objective is the development of clinical practice guidelines to improve the quality of health care and outcome for cancer patients. The methodology is based on literature review and critical appraisal by a multidisciplinary group of experts, with feedback from specialists in cancer care delivery.
Objectives: To develop clinical practice guidelines according to the definitions of the Standards, Options and Recommendations project for difficult diagnoses in surgical pathology or cytopathology in cancer patients.
Methods: Data were identified by searching Medline and using the personal reference lists of members of the expert groups. Once the guidelines were defined, the document was submitted for review to 71 independent reviewers.
Results: The main recommendations to prevent and reduce the number of difficult diagnoses in surgical pathology or cytopathology are: 1) The development of quality insurance programs with use of written procedures in each pathology laboratory (standard). 2) The knowledge of clinical data in order to explain surgical pathology or cytopathology results (standard). 3) The availability of complementary patient informations (radiologic data . . .) can be useful to explain surgical pathology or cytopathology results (option). The main recommendations to detect lesions associated with difficult diagnosis in surgical pathology or cytopathology are: 1) Tumor types known as potential difficult diagnosis in surgical pathology or cytopathology should be reviewed by a second pathologist. 2) The systematic second reviewing for every case is expensive but has to be done when the difficulty is know (sarcoma, lymphoma . . .) by experienced pathologists. The main recommendations to solve difficult diagnosis in surgical pathology or cytopathology are: 1) Block recuts, use of special techniques (immunocytohistochemistry and molecular biology), additional data from clinicians, second opinion by a local pathologist, or new specimen can be required for establishing the diagnosis (options). 2) Outside second opinion by expert pathologist has to be considered once the other steps did not allow to establish surgical or cytopathology diagnosis (recommendations, expert agreement).