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Targeting the use of ovarian cyst aspirate cytology

Department of Laboratory Medicine (Pathology), Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, 51 Little France Crescent, Little France, Edinburgh EH16 4SA, UK; Hannah.monaghan@luht.scot.nhs.uk

Keywords: aspirate; audit; cytology; ovary

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In January 2001, the Royal College of Pathologists’ bulletin published an article entitled "A recovery plan for histopathology".¹ Following this, the Royal College of Pathologists released the document "Histopathology of limited or no clinical value".² This document described specific areas in histopathology where the restriction of services would not deleteriously affect patient management and would increase the time available for other cases. We identified ovarian cyst aspirates as another specimen that does not appear to have clinical importance. We describe our partly successful attempts to decrease the number of specimens received in this department.

The risk of malignancy index (RMI) has been in clinical practice since 1990. The application of the RMI in clinical practice provides a rational basis for specialist referral of patients with ovarian cancer before diagnostic surgery.³ Table 1 shows details of the algorithm by which the RMI is calculated.