Synoptic reporting increases quality of upper gastrointestinal cancer pathology reports

INTRODUCTION: Traditionally, surgical pathology reports are narrative. These report types are prone to error and missing data; therefore, structured standardized reporting was introduced. However, the effect of synoptic reporting on the completeness of esophageal and gastric carcinoma pathology reports is not yet established. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A population-based retrospective nationwide cohort study in the Netherlands was conducted over a period of 2012–2016, utilizing the Netherlands Cancer Registry for patient data and the nationwide network and registry of histology for pathology data. RESULTS: In total, 1148 narrative and 1311 synoptic pathology reports were included. Completeness was achieved in 56.4% of the narrative reports versus 97.0% of the synoptic reports (p < 0.01). Out of 21 standard items, 15 were significantly more frequently reported in synoptic reports. CONCLUSION: Synoptic reporting improves surgical pathology reporting quality and should be implemented in standard patient care. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00428-019-02586-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.