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Intraoperative Pathological Examination of Breast Lesions

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Breast Disease
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Abstract

This chapter describes the intraoperative pathological examination of breast lesions and the pathological examination of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer cases. Intraoperative pathological examination may be performed for the rapid diagnosis of breast malignancy, the assessment of the surgical margins of breast-conserving excision specimens, and the pathological analysis of sentinel lymph nodes. The most commonly used methods for intraoperative pathological examination of breast lesions are cytological and frozen section examinations in addition to gross analysis. The pathological examinations of sentinel lymph nodes necessitate careful gross examination and serial and/or step sectioning. Immunostaining using antibodies against pancytokeratin can also be performed. Sentinel lymph node metastases should be clearly defined as macro- or micrometastasis or isolated tumor cells. The differential diagnosis of subtypes of metastasis and mimickers is detailed.

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Yavuz, E. (2016). Intraoperative Pathological Examination of Breast Lesions. In: Aydiner, A., Ä°ÄŸci, A., Soran, A. (eds) Breast Disease. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22843-3_14

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