Disagreement of histopathological diagnosis of different pathologists in ovarian tumors-with some theoretical considerations.

Microscopical sections of forty-nine ovarian tumors have been assessed as benign, borderline or malignant by four different pathologists, who were unaware of the FIGO stage and clinical follow-up of each patient and each others' diagnosis. There was absolute agreement in 37 cases (75.5%), and disagreement in 12 cases (24.5%). The majority of the disagreements involved borderline-malignant differences. If one of the pathologists did disagree with the other three (in 9 cases, or 18%), there is no correlation between disagreement and histopathological experience. In three cases (6.5%) two pathologists did disagree with the other two. It is concluded that in pathology, objective reproducible and if possible, quantitative techniques should be used instead of subjective grading methods. The probability of the diagnosis should be expressed in a numerical way.