Secondary review of external histopathology on cutaneous oncology patients referred for sentinel lymph node biopsy: how often does it happen and is it worth it?

Abstract

Our data show that review of external cutaneous histopathology diagnoses on patients referred for SLNB is uncommon in our practice area, but is cost-effective and should be required to reduce unnecessary treatment.

A comprehensive diagnostic offering workflow increases the rate of actionable results of the 23- and 35-gene expression profile tests for use as ancillary diagnostic tools for difficult-to-diagnose melanocytic lesions

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A comprehensive diagnostic offering workflow increases the rate of actionable results of the 23-and 35-gene expression profile tests for use as ancillary diagnostic tools for difficult-to-diagnose melanocytic lesions Background Methods › Diagnostic discordance in suspicious cutaneous melanocytic lesions is well documented and particularly prevalent among difficult-to-diagnose cases, for which histopathology may be insufficient for a definitive diagnosis. [1][2][3][4] › The 23-gene expression profile (GEP; myPath Melanoma) and 35-GEP (DiffDx-Melanoma) tests are clinically available objective ancillary tools that facilitate diagnosis of melanocytic lesions with ambiguous histopathology. The tests use proprietary algorithms to produce results of likely benign, intermediate, or malignant.

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Administration

“…Also in this volume of the JCP , Haws et al investigated the value of utilizing a protocol of preoperative review of outside pathology specimens prior to completion of complex surgery, namely sentinel lymph node biopsy. Lamentably, diagnostic errors proved to be common (over 20% of cases in a small sample).…”