Head and Neck Diagnostic Pathology Handbook: Systematic Approach to Differential Assessment, Immunohistochemical Workup, & Intraoperative Margin Evaluation for AP/CP Residents

Resolve the Look-Alike, Choose the Panel, Sign Out with Confidence Built for the pathologist at the microscope with limited time before the report is due, this handbook connects specimen grossing and sampling adequacy to the immunohistochemical and molecular panels that resolve overlapping head and neck diagnoses. It moves through the mucosal, salivary, thyroid, parathyroid, otic, cutaneous, and lymph node compartments, building from grossing technique and frozen section discipline into the differentials defining modern sign-out. Written for AP/CP residents and general surgical pathologists without fellowship training in this subspecialty, it treats every distinction as a question of adequate sampling and the right confirmatory test, never morphologic impression alone. Twenty-seven Diagnostic Panel Compass callouts walk each entity from site signature through panel logic, trap logic, and the finding that locks the diagnosis, consolidated into a cross-referenced atlas at the back of the book. At Sign-Out, This Handbook Puts in Your Hands - Grossing and sampling adequacy - capsular, margin, and depth-of-invasion technique deciding whether a diagnosis is even possible before the slide reaches the scope. - Frozen section deferral discipline - confirming malignancy and deferring subtyping rather than forcing an intraoperative answer under time pressure. - HPV-associated versus HPV-independent oropharyngeal staging - the p16 threshold determining which AJCC pathway a case follows. - The sinonasal small round blue cell differential - a tiered panel separating olfactory neuroblastoma, SNUC, SMARCB1-deficient, and NUT carcinoma. - The basaloid salivary spectrum - architecture and MYB testing separating basal cell adenoma from adenoid cystic and basal cell adenocarcinoma. - Thyroid capsular invasion and NIFTP - the sequencing rule keeping nuclear scoring from overriding a genuinely invasive focus. - Hereditary syndrome recognition - RET/MEN2, SDHB, and CDC73 triggers built into the medullary carcinoma, paraganglioma, and parathyroid workups. >Keep it beside the microscope - the panel that resolves tomorrow's difficult case is already inside.