Clinical Implication of Diagnostic and Histopathologic Discrepancies in Sinonasal Malignancies

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the incidence of histopathologic diagnostic discrepancy for patients referred to our institution, identify pathologies susceptible to diagnostic error, and assess the impact on survival of histopathologic diagnostic discrepancies. Methods: Three hundred ninety-seven patients with sinonasal cancers were identified, and discordance between the outside pathologic report and MD Anderson Cancer Center pathologic report was assessed. Overall survival and disease-specific survival were analyzed using Kaplan–Meier and log rank methods. Results: Discordance of major histopathologic diagnoses was present in 24% (97 of 397) of reports, with sinonasal undifferentiated carcinoma, sarcoma, neuroendocrine carcinoma, and poorly differentiated carcinoma pathologies having the highest change in diagnosis (P