Current Thoracic Surgery 2020 , Vol 5 , Issue 1
Does frozen section increase false negativity in cervical mediastinoscopy during mediastinal lymph node staging compared to paraffin section?
Volkan Erdoğu1,Muzaffer Metin1,Adnan Sayar2,Songül Büyükkale2,Ali Kılıçgün3,Serda Kanbur Metin4,Atilla Pekçolaklar5,Necati Çıtak6,Halide Nur Ürer7,Atilla Gürses1
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Health Sciences, Yedikule Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Education and Research Center, Istanbul, Turkey
2Department of Thoracic Surgery, Memorial Şişli Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey
3Department of Thoracic Surgery, Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University, Faculty of Medicine, Bolu, Turkey
4Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Health Sciences, Süreyyapaşa Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey
5Department of Thoracic Surgery, Bursa City Hospital, Bursa, Turkey
6Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Health Sciences, Bakırköy Dr. Sadi Konuk Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey
7Department of Pathology, University of Health Sciences, Yedikule Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Education and Research Center, Istanbul, Turkey
DOI : 10.26663/cts.2020.0005 Viewed : 4642 - Downloaded : 1558 Background: Cervical Mediastinoscopy (CM) is the most important invasive method in mediastinal lymph node staging. Lymph nodes dissected via CM can either be sent to frozen section (FS) for analysis allowing thoracotomy to be performed on the same session, or to paraffin section (PS) where thoracotomy is performed as a separate session (as a separate operation). This study compares the falsenegative ratio of mediastinoscopic FS and PS analysis.

Materials and Methods:454 patients with primary lung cancer who have undergone CM between January 2003 and December 2005 have been retrospectively analysed. This study evaluates whether FS analysis increases the false-negative rate of lymph node biopsies.

Results: 160 cases from the PS group and 113 cases from the FS group were included in the study. The mean age of the patients was 56.4 years (range 28-77 years). There were 260 men and 13 women. In the PS group, mean thoracotomy time after CM was 9.9 days. False negativity of CM in the PS and the FS groups was found to be 9.2% and 8%, respectively.

Conclusion: There was no statistically significant difference in terms of false negativity between FS and PS in mediastinal staging (p = 0.598). Keywords : Frozen section, paraffin section, lung cancer staging