Surgical Pathology Handbook 2026

Built for the pathologist who has to gross the specimen, read the slide, and defend the diagnosis before the case leaves the desk, this handbook connects the mechanics of specimen handling and grossing to the architectural and immunohistochemical reasoning that separates a benign mimicker from a malignant diagnosis across every organ system in general surgical pathology practice. It moves from specimen integrity and frozen section reliability through the organ-by-organ differentials that define daily sign-out and into the specific stain, panel, or measurement that resolves each one.

Fifty-three worked diagnostic arcs, each built around a genuine mimicker pair, translate ancillary study selection into a defensible, sign-out-ready conclusion, with a cross-referenced master index for fast recall at the bench.

At the Microscope, This Book Puts in Your Hands

• Separate crush artifact from small round blue cell malignancy - the specimen-handling judgment call that starts every difficult case.

• Distinguish a dysplastic nodule from well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma - reticulin and stromal invasion assessment, not cytology alone.

• Resolve the sinonasal and pediatric small round blue cell differential - a structured, tiered immunohistochemical panel for a five-entity workup.

• Separate oncocytoma from chromophobe renal cell carcinoma - nuclear contour, not cytoplasmic eosinophilia, drives the call.

• Confirm prostatic adenocarcinoma on a limited needle biopsy - basal cell marker and AMACR co-interpretation for genuinely borderline foci.

• Grade Barrett and inflammatory bowel disease dysplasia - surface maturation assessment and the second-review discipline subspecialists rely on.

• Build synoptic reports that hold up - margin, lymph node, and biomarker documentation worked into every organ-specific chapter.

• Find any diagnostic arc fast - a master index cross-referenced by organ system, mimicker pattern, and ancillary marker.

Open it at the grossing bench, in frozen section, or before a difficult sign-out - the reasoning this specialty runs on, in one reference.