Assessment of retraction in surgical specimens in melanoma patients submitted to oncological amplification of margins

Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer and represents more than half of the diagnosed malignant tumors. There are more than one million new cases per year in the United States and about 120.000 new cases in Brazil. Cutaneous melanoma represents 5% of all primary cutaneous neoplasms; however,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Surgical oncology 2021-03, Vol.36, p.106-112
Main Authors: Alves Wainstein, Alberto Julius, Flores Ferrão, Everton Otavio, Virgílio Alves, Amanda Cristina, Borges Murta, Maria Clara, Drummond-Lage, Ana Paula
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biopsy
Cancer
Cutaneous melanoma
Enlargement
Evaluation
Fixation
Formaldehyde
Formalin
Lesions
Lymphatic system
Medical prognosis
Melanoma
Melanoma surgery
Neoplasms
Patients
Regression analysis
Shrinkage
Skin cancer
Skin shrinkage
Skin tumors
Surgeons
Surgery
Surgical margins
Tumors
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Summary:Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer and represents more than half of the diagnosed malignant tumors. There are more than one million new cases per year in the United States and about 120.000 new cases in Brazil. Cutaneous melanoma represents 5% of all primary cutaneous neoplasms; however, it has a worse prognosis. Adequate treatment of the primary lesion is the main cure factor, with free surgical margins, thus avoiding recurrences of the lesion. The present study aims to evaluate and quantify the retraction of the surgical specimen in three moments, in-vivo, ex-vivo and in-vitro, and also evaluating possible factors related to retraction, such as formalin fixation, age, patient's gender, and lesion location. This is a prospective, single-center cohort that evaluated 145 surgical specimens from patients who underwent oncological surgery of cutaneous melanoma margins enlargement. Lesions were marked with a standard brush, and surgical margins were measured with a sterile ruler, according to their initial staging. After resection, new surgical specimens measurements were obtained, and, after fixation in formalin, the last measurement was performed. The same oncological surgeon performed all procedures, and the same pathologist analyzed the specimens. Regarding the area of the specimens, there was a general median retraction of 38.15% between in-vivo and ex-vivo (p 
ISSN:0960-7404
1879-3320
DOI:10.1016/j.suronc.2020.11.005