Abstract
3/2007
vol. 4
Torakochirurgia
Significance of frozen section investigation for pulmonary lesions and bronchial margins resection
Kardiochirurgia i Torakochirurgia Polska 2007; 4 (3): 267–272
Online publish date: 2007/09/14
The frozen section (FS) examination is one of the most difficult histopathological procedures. It requires a lot of experience from the pathologist and good cooperation between surgeon and pathologist. The main reasons for performing FS are: to establish the presence and nature of a lesion, to determine the adequacy of surgical resection margins, and to establish whether the tissue obtained contains enough diagnosable material for microscopic examination. Other indications pertaining to lung pathology and lung-related lesions include evaluation of lung cancer staging and a confirmation by tissue diagnosis of a specimen obtained previously by fine-needle aspiration, core-needle biopsy, or bronchoscopy, cytology or biopsy, especially when histopathological diagnosis raises clinical doubts. Most FS diagnoses are in accordance with the definitive results. A small number of FS are postponed and a final diagnosis is based on paraffin section. However, a false-negative or false-positive FS arising from incorrect diagnosis may happen. False-negative FS include both errors of sampling and errors of interpretation. False-positive FS include incorrect microscopic diagnosis of malignancy. An understanding of indications for FS, diagnostic possibilities, limitations and difficulties of this procedure are a very important element of cooperation between the surgeon and surgical pathologist.
Keywords
frozen section, touch imprint cytology, pulmonary lesions, bronchial surgical margin
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