Frozen section procedure

The microtome device that cold cuts thin blocks of frozen tissue is called a cryotome.

The report given by the pathologist is often limited to a "benign" or "malignant" diagnosis, and communicated to the surgeon operating via intercom.

The frozen section procedure as practiced today in medical laboratories is based on the description by Dr Louis B. Wilson in 1905.

The surgical specimen is placed on a metal tissue disc which is then secured in a chuck and frozen rapidly to about –20 to –30 °C.

[citation needed] Steps of cryotomy: The principal use of the frozen section procedure is the examination of tissue while surgery is taking place.

In the performance of Mohs surgery, it is a simple method for real-time margin control of a surgical specimen.

[citation needed] If surgery is explorative, rapid examination of a lesion might help identify the possible cause of a patient's symptoms.

[citation needed] Rarely, cryosections are used to detect the presence of substances lost in the traditional histology technique, for example lipids.

A Cochrane systematic review published in 2016 analysed all studies that reported diagnostic accuracy of frozen sections in women undergoing surgery for suspicious tumor in ovary.

The review concluded that for tumors that were clearly either benign or malignant on frozen section, the accuracy of the diagnosis was good, as confirmed later by regular biopsy.