Journal of the Korean Surgical Society  2002;63(6):445-448

Frozen Section Diagnosis of Breast Lesions.

Hyung Jin KIM 1 ; Woo Chan PARK ; Gyeongsin PARK ; Sang Seol JUNG

Affiliations

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Keywords

Breast; Frozen section; Breast cancer

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

PURPOSE: Frozen sections of breast specimens can be used to determine malignancy in a suspected lesion of the breast during operation. However, this procedure always has a potential risk of reporting a false positive or negative. This study was performed to evaluate the accuracy of the frozen section diagnosis of breast lesions. METHODS: A retrospective study to comparing the results of frozen and paraffin, section diagnosis was undertaken. RESULTS: 178 frozen breast section diagnoses were made between January 1995 and December 1996 at Kangnam St. Mary hospital. There were no false positive reports (0%) but 3 false negative reports (1.7%). The causes of a false negative were sampling error in 2 cases and interpretation error in the other. The sensitivity and specificity of the frozen section diagnosis were 94.5 and 99.2%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Despite the high sensitivity and specificity of the breast specimen frozen section diagnosis, care should be taken when making a decision on the frozen section diagnosis due to the possibility of false negative results.