Pitfalls in the pathological diagnosis of lymphoma

Since the publication of the 2008 World Health Organization classifications of lymphoma, additional immunohistochemical tests and other ancillary methods such as flow cytometry, cytogenetic and other molecular biology techniques, have been applied in routine clinical work. Due to the utilization of these methodologies, there has been great progress in the pathological diagnosis and classification of lymphomas in the mainland of China. Nonetheless, lymphoma pathology still remains very challenging in the field of diagnostic pathology. Ten percent of pathologist’s annual consultation cases are lymphomas, thus reflecting the difficulty of this field. Here, we summarize the common misdiagnoses and pitfalls when dealing with lymphoma cases, the cause of the errors and strategies to avoid inaccurate diagnoses.