Is an Intraoperative Frozen Section Useful for Judging the Necessity of Lymphadenectomy in Patients With Endometrial Cancer

Abstract

Background: We evaluated whether an intraoperative frozen section is useful for judging the necessity of lymphadenectomy for treating endometrial cancer. Methods: We examined 106 patients with endometrial cancer in whom histological grade and uterine muscle layer invasion were evaluated using an intraoperative frozen section at our institution between 2012 and 2016. We compared the intraoperative frozen-section diagnosis with a preoperative evaluation regarding the accuracy of determining histological grade and uterine muscular invasion, which are considered risk factors for lymph-node metastasis. Results: The preoperative evaluation and intraoperative frozen section had 55% and 75% diagnostic accuracies, respectively (P = 0.002). The frozen-section diagnosis was superior to preoperative evaluation, particularly for detecting the presence of uterine muscular invasion. Conclusions: A frozen section is useful if the presence of muscular invasion is included in the criteria for determining whether lymphadenectomy should be performed. J Clin Gynecol Obstet. 2019;8(1):9-16 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jcgo537