ABSTRACT
Background: During the surgical treatment of breast neoplasms (benign or malignant), frozen section biopsy is frequently requested to assess the kind of lesion and determine the surgical margins. Aim: To assess the diagnostic yield of frozen section breast biopsy. Material and methods: AH the pathological reports of frozen section biopsies and definitive biopsies of 337 women aged 26 to 88 years, operated for suspected breast neoplasms between 2002 and 2006, were reviewed. The sensitivity, specificity and predictive value of frozen section biopsy, were calculated using the definitive biopsy as the gold standard. Results: The definitive biopsy confirmed the presence of cancer in 290 women (86 percent). There were two false negative (0.59 percent) and no false positive frozen section biopsies for cancer detection. The sensibility for cancer detection was 99.3 percent and the specificity 100 percent. The positive predictive value was 100 percent and the negative predictive value 96.1 percent. The diagnosis of phyllodes tumor was missed by frozen section biopsy in three cases. The margins were informed in the 258 frozen section biopsies (79 percent) and in 59 cases (18 percent), these were positive for cancer. Conclusions: Frozen section biopsy is useful and reliable for cancer detection and margin status assessment in breast cancer surgery (RevMéd Chile 2009; 137: 1173-8).