ArticleWorld journal of surgical oncology2021
How accurate is frozen section pathology compared to permanent pathology in detecting involved margins and lymph nodes in breast cancer?
Article in World journal of surgical oncology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Hyperspectral imaging for tumor resection guidance in surgery: a systematic review of preclinical and clinical studies.Journal of biomedical optics · 2025Pooled it
- Real-time identification of malignant breast tissue during electrosurgical resection.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Photoacoustic imaging: An emerging tool for intraoperative margin assessment in breast-conserving surgery.Photoacoustics · 2026Review
- Margin Matters: Advances in Intraoperative Margin Assessment for Breast-Conserving Surgery.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The Prevalence of Sentinel Lymph Node Positivity and Implications for the Utility of Frozen Section Diagnosis Following Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy in Patients with Clinically Node-Negative HER2-Positive or Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.Annals of surgical oncology · 2024Observational
- Electrical lymph node scanning (ELS) system for real-time intra-operative detection of involved axillary lymph nodes in adjuvant breast cancer patients.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- SENOSI Confocal Microscopy: A New and Innovating Way to Detect Positive Margins in Non-Palpable Breast Cancer?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Intraoperative Assessment of Resection Margin in Oral Cancer: The Potential Role of Spectroscopy.Cancers · 2023Review
- Deep learning-enabled realistic virtual histology with ultraviolet photoacoustic remote sensing microscopy.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Clonal dynamics and Stereo-seq resolve origin and phenotypic plasticity of adenosquamous carcinoma.NPJ precision oncology · 2023Article
- High-Frequency (30 MHz-6 GHz) Breast Tissue Characterization Stabilized by Suction Force for Intraoperative Tumor Margin Assessment.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Application of near-infrared fluorescence imaging in the accurate assessment of surgical margins during breast-conserving surgery.World journal of surgical oncology · 2022Article
- Evolution of Frozen Section in Carcinoma Breast: Systematic Review.International journal of breast cancer · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFrozen section (FS) pathology has multiple limitations, and different institutions report variable experiences with the use of FS for diagnosis of tumor involvement. We aimed to compare the FS accuracy with that of permanent pathology (gold standard) regarding marginal involvement and lymph node status using data from the largest breast cancer registry in Iran.
methodsIn this retrospective study, women who had both FS and permanent pathology reports were included. The two pathology reports were cross compared with regard to the involvement of tumor margins and sentinel lymph nodes.
resultsOverall, 2786 patients entered the study. Mean age of patients was 48.96±11.44 years. A total of 1742 margins were analyzed. Accordingly, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of FS pathology for detection of involvement of involved margins were 78.49%, 97.63%, 65.1%, and 98.7%, respectively. The accuracy and area under the curve (AUC) for FS pathology were 96.61% and 0.73 (95% CI: 0.64-0.831), respectively. A total of 1702 sentinel lymph node biopsies were assessed. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV, of FS pathology for detection of lymph node involvement, were 87.1%, 98%, 95.5%, and 93.3%, respectively. Accuracy and AUC of FS for diagnosis of involved lymph nodes were 94.1% and 0.926 (95% CI: 0.909-0.942), respectively.
conclusionFrozen pathology is a suitable method for identifying involved sentinel lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer, but this method has a less than optimum efficacy for detecting and confirming marginal involvement.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.