Surgical Margin - Definition

Definition

Surgical margin in a surgery reports define the visible margin or free edge of "normal" tissue seen by the surgeon with the naked eye. Surgical margin as read in a pathology report define the histological measurement of normal or unaffected tissue surrounding the visible tumor under a microscope on a glass mounted histology section. A "narrow" surgical margin implies that the tumor exists very close to the surgical margin, and a "wide" surgical margin implies the tumor exists far from the cut edge or the surgical margin. Narrow surgical margin using the bread loafing technique suggests that residual cancer might be left due to false negative error. A surgeon often will perform a second surgery if a narrow surgical margin is noted on a pathology report.

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