Problems in diagnosis of benign bone tumors

The diagnosis of benign bone tumors can cause many problems and a definitiv e histological diagnosis is often impossible without the knowledge of clini cal datas, age of the patient and anatomical location of the tumor. Therefo r cooperation between pathologist, orthopedic surgeon and radiologist is ne cessary,to reduce the risk of missinterpretation of benign and malignant bo ne tumors. Benign bone tumors often show a heterogenous histology and overlapping morp hology between different entities has to be kept in mind, as well as the sa mpling error in biopsy-and frozen section material. In most cases the pathologist has to rely on conventional stainings because the immunohistochemistry stainings are often not helpful.