Medicolegal liability in surgical pathology: a consideration of underlying causes and selected pertinent concepts

Malpractice actions against surgical pathologists are still relatively uncommon, but they have increased in frequency over time and are associated with sizable indemnity figures. This discussion categorizes areas of liability in surgical pathology into three groups: those that represent health system flaws (problems with specimen identification, or transportation, or both; lack of clinical information or erroneous information; sampling effects and defects; and poorly reproducible or poorly defined diagnostic or prognostic criteria), others that exist at the interface between the system and individuals (allowing clinicians to bypass pathologic review of referred specimens; acceding to clinical demands for inadvisable procedures; and working in a disruptive environment), and truly individual errors by pathologists (lapses in reasoning; deficiencies concerning continuity in the laboratory; invalid assumptions regarding recipients of surgical pathology reports; over-reliance on the results of “special” tests; and problems with peer consultation). Finally, two important topic areas are discussed that commonly enter into lawsuits filed against surgical pathologists; namely, “delay in diagnosis” of malignant neoplasms and “failure to provide adequate prognostic information.” Based on a review of the pertinent literature, we conclude that the clinical courses of most common malignancies are not affected in a significant manner by delays in diagnosis. Moreover, the practice of using “personalized external validity” for supposedly prognostic tests is examined, with the resulting opinion that prognostication of tumor behavior in individual patients is not reliable using anything but anatomic staging systems.

Keywords: Surgical Pathology, Legal liability, Medical malpractice, Medical errors, Health system flaws, Delay in diagnosis, Prognostic markers