Intraoperative Specimen Ultrasonography: Is It a Reliable Tool for Margin Assessment Following Breast Conservation Surgery for Breast Carcinoma?

Background: Assessment of margins after breast conservation surgery is an essential part of management in breast cancer and is important in prognostication of the patient. Various intra-operative techniques like frozen section and imprint cytology are in use to ensure negative margins but have their limitations in the fact that 3D evaluation is not feasible. These lead to false negatives and also are operator dependent. In order to obviate these shortcomings, various centers are using specimen imaging (specimen mammogram and ultrasonography). Aims and Objectives: 1) To evaluate the accuracy of specimen ultrasonography in assessing the margins following breast conservation surgery (BCS). 2) To compare the accuracy of intra-operative specimen ultra-sonography with frozen section for assessment of excision margins following BCS. Materials and methods: Sixty-two biopsy-proven patients with breast cancer who underwent BCS were included in this prospective study at a tertiary cancer care center. The oriented specimens were evaluated by specimen ultrasonography and later by frozen section. The final histopathology served as the gold standard. Results: Specimen ultrasonography is found to be superior to frozen section in providing detailed assessment of margins in patients undergoing breast conservation. Specimen ultrasonography was also able to detect additional lesions which might be missed on frozen section, especially the in-situ carcinoma.