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About 2 million new cancers are diagnosed each year in the US. These cancers are almost always diagnosed based on morphologic patterns seen under the microscope in glass slides prepared from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue biopsies or surgically resected specimens. The appearance of tumors provides key diagnostic and prognostic information. Morphology allows a well-trained oncologic pathologist to triage further diagnostic work-up in the right direction, select the most appropriate ancillary tests and arrive at the correct diagnosis in the most cost effective and timely manner. In the modern era, high resolution digital scanners and whole-slide imaging are replacing conventional microscopy; however, even these tools rely on morphologic diagnosis.
As the gold standard for diagnosis, and hence a key factor in identifying the correct treatment, it is critical that the recognition of tumor morphology be accurate. Yet there is a substantial rate of diagnostic discordance in various cancers.
Recent data highlighting the need for advanced, multidisciplinary and morphologic image-based education in specific cancer types and subtypes is briefly reviewed below:
Epithelioid Sarcoma and Soft Tissue Sarcomas
With low concordance rates in very common cancer types even among specialists and academic pathologists, it is very likely that in uncommon cancers or rare subtypes of cancers, a false diagnosis or imprecise pathologic grading and staging is guiding the treatment plan and impacting treatment outcomes in large numbers of individual patients1. It should also be noted that about 1/5th of all invasive cancers is classified as rare cancers2.
This is a critical issue in soft tissue tumors where the major discordance rate between expert second opinions and primary diagnosis was reported at 60% in one study. These numbers drop to a discordance rate of 11% among specialist pathologists, which argues for the need for expert validation. Most clinicians and their patients would still consider this to be an unacceptably high number in such a serious condition.3 This challenge is perhaps even more critical in the pediatric population4.
There is a critical need for integrating morphological and molecular diagnoses in soft tissue sarcoma to improve real world treatment outcomes5.