BONE-TUMOR RADIOGRAPH REVIEW BY PATHOLOGISTS PRIOR TO PATHOLOGICAL DIAGNOSIS - A RECEIVER OPERATOR CURVE ANALYSIS OF DIAGNOSTIC UTILITY

Radiologic-pathologic correlation has long been considered a prerequis ite for the accurate diagnosis of bone lesions. We investigated using receiver-operating characteristic analysis the accuracy of histopathol ogic diagnoses with and without pathologist review of radiographs. Whi le accuracy of diagnosis did improve when the radiographs were reviewe d by the pathologist, this increase did not reach statistical signific ance (P=0.1311). Potential reasons for this finding including case sel ection and reviewer expertise are discussed. Based on our study, the r eview of radiographs did not result in a statistically significant dif ference in accuracy of the pathologic diagnosis of bone tumors. Howeve r, our data suggest that there may be a difference particularly in sel ected cases and among certain observers.