Comparative Study Between Intraoperative Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology/Imprint Cytology and Frozen Section in Determination of Tumour Margin

Our study was done to compare the results of frozen section (FS) with intraoperative fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), imprint cytology (IC) and permanent paraffin embedded histopathological sections in determining tumour margin and to find out an alternative, rapid, simple and cost-effective method in determining the tumour margin in a setup where frozen section facility is not available. Intraoperative FNAC and imprint cytology were collected from 42 patients with malignant neoplasm. Frozen section was also done on the tissue collected from those patients. These findings were also compared with permanent paraffin embedded histopathological sections. Sensitivities of both imprint cytology and frozen section study were similar and specificity was 100% for FNAC, IC and FS study. Thus, we can use FNAC and imprint cytology together to determine tumour margin over much expensive and laborious frozen section study and also where frozen section facilities are not available.