Pathology Consultation for the Gynecologic Oncologist: What the Surgeon Wants to Know.

CONTEXT: - Clinical management of gynecologic malignancies is often multimodal. Pathologic diagnoses, patient-related factors, and disease-related factors all contribute to clinical decision making.

OBJECTIVE: - To review the role of surgical pathology in treatment planning among women with gynecologic malignancies.

DATA SOURCES: - An analysis of relevant literature (PubMed Plus [National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda, Maryland] and Medline [Ovid, New York, New York]) and the authors' clinical-practice experience were used.

CONCLUSIONS: - Pathologic evaluation of gynecologic malignancies with traditional histopathology, assessment of genetic alterations, and identification of tumor biomarkers are critical to traditional treatment planning as well as for ongoing clinical trials.