PLEURAL MALIGNANT MESOTHELIOMA IN TUSCANY, ITALY (1970-1988) .1. ANATOMOPATHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Our investigation did not confirm the general experience that signific ant numbers of cases initially considered malignant mesothelioma or me tastatic carcinoma are actually found to be metastatic carcinoma or ma lignant mesothelioma, respectively, upon deeper investigation using an cillary techniques (e.g., histochemistry, immunohistochemistry, electr on microscopy). Well-trained pathologists, expert in thoraco-pulmonary pathology, have a high inter- and intra-rater agreement and significa ntly better results than standard hospital pathologists in correctly d ifferentiating malignant mesothelioma from metastatic carcinoma. There fore, epidemiologic investigations which exclude an accurate and rigor ous reevaluation of the histologic slides have to be considered unreli able, unless the data come from a specialized medical center experienc ed in this type of pathology.