Clinical benefits of frozen section assessment during urological surgery: Does it contribute to improving surgical margin status and patient outcomes as previously thought?

Abstract

Despite significant advances in patient selection as well as surgical technique over the past few decades, it is still not uncommon for patients with urological malignancy and positive surgical margins to be observed. Meanwhile, intraoperative pathology consultation with frozen section assessment, which generally provides useful information for the optimal procedure, has been widely utilized for the assessment of surgical margins during urological surgeries. Thus, it remains unanswered whether intraoperative frozen section assessment has an impact on final surgical margin status as well as long-term oncological outcomes. The present review summarizes and discusses available data assessing the utility of frozen section assessment of the surgical margins during urological surgeries, such as radical prostatectomy, partial nephrectomy and radical cystectomy. The current findings suggest that select patients might benefit from the routine frozen section assessment.