Survey of pathology reports with no definitive diagnosis in oral lesions: the necessary skills for the clinicians

PURPOSE: Biopsy plays a crucial role in definitive diagnosis of lesions and consequently, appropriate treatment of them. Clinicians should correctly do the biopsy in accordance to the existing principles and guidelines to prevent adverse effects on the pathologist's diagnosis. This study aimed to determine the frequency and reasons for not providing definitive histopathological diagnosis of the biopsy samples belong to the laboratory of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Faculty of Dentistry, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences. METHODS: Archival reports belong to 2006–2016 period of the related laboratory were studied to determine the reports with no definitive histopathological diagnosis. RESULTS: Out of 1018 archived reports; 90 reports (8.84%) had no definitive diagnosis. The most common reasons found were incompatibility between the clinical/radiographical diagnosis and histopathological findings for 42 cases (46.66%), absence of adequate information about the clinical/radiographical findings for 17 cases (18.88%) and inappropriate quality of samples for 13 cases (14.44%), respectively. CONCLUSION: The reasons for not providing definitive histopathological diagnosis of the biopsy samples in present study indicated that preparation, assessment and diagnosis of microscopic slide by pathologists do not separate from the clinician performance.