Do they do path at time of surgery for margins

Anonymous

Do they do path at time of surgery for margins

Nulyte

Hi,

Back home on the East Coast they do the pathology as the surgeon is doing the mastectomy to ensure clear margins. Here in Orlando when I asked that question they said no it takes a couple weeks??? Is this everyone else's experience? I would rather her know then and there instead of going back in if the margins aren't clear....thoughts /experiences??

Thanks

Beesie

Any pathology check that is done while surgery is underway - whether it's a check of the nodes removed during the SNB or whether it's a check of the margins - is by definition a high level cursory check. A large area of cancer will be found, but a small grouping of cancer cells may not be. It takes time for the pathologist to do a thorough review under the microscope looking for any tiny little cancer cell. So the result that comes from the check that is done during surgery will always be only a preliminary result, subject to change once the final pathology is in. For this reason, it isn't that common for margins to be checked during surgery.

This may change in the future, as new methods are being developed to allow for surgical margins to be assessed during surgery with improved speed and accuracy (but still unlikely to be 100% certain and therefore the results will still be subject to change with the final pathology).

Intraoperative Assessment of Surgical Margins During Breast-Conserving Surgery with Radiofrequency Spectroscopy or Optical Coherence Tomography

May I ask about your diagnosis? I don't understand your signature line. DCIS is always and only Stage 0. Do you have Stage 0 DCIS? Or do you have Stage IIB IDC (perhaps with some DCIS mixed in with the IDC, which is very common)? Those are two very different diagnoses and it's unclear which you have.