Abstract
The artifacts in histopathology are artificial structures or tissue alterations produced during biopsy or tissue processing, which can alter the sample or lead to misdiagnosis. Our objective was to evaluate dental clinicians' knowledge about artifacts and to assess the most common artifacts found in histological slides from an oral pathology laboratory, with the aim of reducing their occurrence. An online questionnaire was prepared to be answered by clinicians and 200 histological slides were evaluated by two calibrated examiners. Results were statistically analyzed. Forty-four users of an Oral Pathology Laboratory answered the questionnaire. They were predominantly female (63.6%), over 40 years old (54.5%), graduated more than 20 years ago (52.3%), from public universities (72.7%), non-specialists (54.5%), with 88.6% of the sample correctly answering over 70% of the questionnaire. It was observed that non-specialists had a higher knowledge of artifacts, and other comparisons were not significant. The most common artifacts produced during biopsy were crush or squeeze artifact (30.5%), while in the laboratory, tears/splits were the most common (92%). All slides presented at least one processing artifact. Most users have a basic knowledge of the subject, but the percentage of artifacts is high. Knowledge of artifacts is important for clinicians and pathologists to reduce their prevalence and prevent misinterpretation and misdiagnosis.
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