Abstract
It is important to obtain tumour-free resection margins in patients with oral cancer.
Pathological processing is known to cause tissue to shrink, which affects the reported
margins, and it is postulated that the method of resection also has an effect. We
marked standardised simulated lesions on the tongues of 15 live anaesthetised pigs
and divided each lesion into four equal sections. They were resected each with a margin
of 10 mm using cutting diathermy, coagulative diathermy, Harmonic scalpel, and a conventional
scalpel. After processing, the excision margins were measured. With cutting diathermy
and coagulative diathermy, shrinkage of the soft tissues was minimal relative to the
margin of the simulated lesion compared with the Harmonic scalpel (p = 0.001) and conventional scalpel (p = 0.001). Cutting diathermy and coagulative diathermy caused significant thermal damage
(p = 0.001). The method of resection affects the surgical margin. Diathermy resulted in
thermal injury and denaturing of the underlying muscle, but there was less tissue
contraction than when the Harmonic scalpel and conventional scalpel were used. The
ethics committee approved the study, which was undertaken in a registered European
Scientific Institute in Hamburg.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial SurgeryAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Quantification of surgical margin shrinkage in the oral cavity.Head Neck. 1997; 19: 281-286
- The status of the resection margin as a prognostic factor in the treatment of head and neck carcinoma.J Craniomaxillofac Surg. 1991; 19: 314-318
- Implications of positive surgical margins.Laryngoscope. 1993; 103: 64-68
- Significance of positive margins in oral cavity squamous carcinoma.Am J Surg. 1990; 160: 410-414
- Histopathological prognosticators in oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carinoma.Oral Oncol. 2006; 42: 229-239
- The prognostic implications of the surgical margin in oral squamous cell carcinoma.Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2003; 32: 30-34
- Influence of condition of surgical margins on local recurrence and disease-specific survival in oral and oropharyngeal cancer.Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2003; 41: 224-231
- Post-resection mucosal margin shrinkage in oral cancer: quantification and significance.J Surg Oncol. 2005; 91: 131-133
Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 08, 2013
Accepted:
March 23,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc.
