Myoepithelioma of soft tissue and diagnostic pitfall in cytology

1. Bhanvadia VM, Agarwal NM, Chavda AD, Bhetariya BV. Myoepithelioma of soft tissue in the gluteal region: Diagnostic pitfall in cytology. Cytojournal 2017;14:14. 2. Wiwanitkit V. Types and frequency of preanalytical mistakes in the first Thai ISO 9002:1994 certified clinical laboratory, a 6 – month monitoring. BMC Clin Pathol 2001;1:5. Dear Editor, The report on “Myoepithelioma of soft tissue and diagnostic pitfall in cytology” is very interesting.[1] Bhanvadia et al. concluded that “a cytopathologist should be aware of bland nature of round, epithelioid and plasmacytoid cells in myxoid and fibrillary background to hit the correct diagnosis.”[1] In fact, the misinterpretation problem as discussed in the present report is a common problem in diagnostic cytology and it is considered as a postanalytical error. Nevertheless, in laboratory medicine, there are also possible errors in other phases of laboratory testing. Bhanvadia et al. might not recognize the importance of quality control and possible error, which might occur in nay phase of the test ranging from preanalytical thorough analytical until postanalytical phase. In laboratory medicine, the most common problem error does not occur in postanalytical phase but preanalytical phase. The problem usually occurs due to patient preparation and specimen correction. This kind of problem can be seen worldwide regardless the quality certification of the medical laboratory or not.[2]