Gross examination, often encompassing simultaneous dissection, description, and sampling, is a complex task and an essential component of anatomical pathology.
The importance of adequate specimen handling and descriptions is highlighted by numerous fundamental monographs, including:
- Rosai and Ackerman’s Surgical Pathology by Goldblum, Lamps, and McKenney
- Principles and Techniques in Surgical Pathology by W. Schmidt
- Surgical Pathology Dissection: An Illustrated Guide by Westra, Phelps, Hruban, and Isacson
- Manual of Surgical Pathology by S.C. Lester
- Raymond's Paragraph System for the organization of gross pathology reports by Dayton, Ro, Schwartz, Ayala, and Raymond
These scholarly publications have served as the basis of many grossing manuals.
Because of the complexity of the gross examination, standardized hard copies of protocols and reference texts to guide the examination often become cumbersome and difficult to use in the busy laboratory. Using them also requires repeatedly taking off gloves, which slows down the examination. This is why it is very convenient to use electronic manuals, reporting datasets, and dictation templates such as:
Users can choose between a variety of examples to create a set of standardized pathology manuals. Gross templates can be used with any dictation system and LIS (see image).
