Surgical margin evaluation in veterinary medicine: an assessment of canine skin shrinkage and histopathologic reporting of canine mast cell tumors
type: CreativeWork
description: When cutaneous mast cell tumors (MCT) are removed and evaluated for histopathology, the tissue undergoes many changes. Initially the mass is removed with planned surgical margins, which are a measure of grossly normal tissue around the tumor border. The cut margins are marked so that the pathologist can identify the margins in relation to the patient and the specimen is placed in formalin. Upon removal, however, the specimen undergoes noticeable shrinkage, which is further exacerbated by histologic processing. Upon being received by the laboratory, the gross appearance of the tissue has drastically changed from the time of surgery. This tissue is sectioned, stained and prepped for the pathologist to evaluate. Finally the pathologist prepares the histopathology report for the clinician. The histopathology reports, especially grade and margin reporting, are critically important for the clinician as they aid in the decision-making process regarding necessity and mode of adjunctive therapy recommended. However, the steps that occur from surgery until pathologic review can affect the pathologist’s ability to report accurate histologic margins if appropriate measures are not taken. Likewise, it is important for the surgeon to understand the tissue shrinkage that occurs if histologic and surgical margins are ever to be correlated. Therefore, the second project focused on evaluating MCT histopathology reports, which is the major communication tool between the pathologist and the surgeon. The specific objectives of the first project were to evaluate the effects of anatomic location, histologic processing, and sample size on shrinkage of surgically excised canine skin samples. The purpose of the second project was to describe and evaluate information presented within canine MCT histopathology reports specifically focusing on how information that is important for determining future treatment recommendations and patient prognosis is reported. In the first project, elliptical sa…
abstract: When cutaneous mast cell tumors (MCT) are removed and evaluated for histopathology, the tissue undergoes many changes. Initially the mass is removed with planned surgical margins, which are a measure of grossly normal tissue around the tumor border. The cut margins are marked so that the pathologist can identify the margins in relation to the patient and the specimen is placed in formalin. Upon removal, however, the specimen undergoes noticeable shrinkage, which is further exacerbated by histologic processing. Upon being received by the laboratory, the gross appearance of the tissue has drastically changed from the time of surgery. This tissue is sectioned, stained and prepped for the pathologist to evaluate. Finally the pathologist prepares the histopathology report for the clinician. The histopathology reports, especially grade and margin reporting, are critically important for the clinician as they aid in the decision-making process regarding necessity and mode of adjunctive therapy recommended. However, the steps that occur from surgery until pathologic review can affect the pathologist’s ability to report accurate histologic margins if appropriate measures are not taken. Likewise, it is important for the surgeon to understand the tissue shrinkage that occurs if histologic and surgical margins are ever to be correlated. Therefore, the second project focused on evaluating MCT histopathology reports, which is the major communication tool between the pathologist and the surgeon. The specific objectives of the first project were to evaluate the effects of anatomic location, histologic processing, and sample size on shrinkage of surgically excised canine skin samples. The purpose of the second project was to describe and evaluate information presented within canine MCT histopathology reports specifically focusing on how information that is important for determining future treatment recommendations and patient prognosis is reported. In the first project, elliptical sa…
author: Reagan, Jennifer Kathleen
language: en
keywords: Margins, Mast cell tumor
date published: 2017-08-10T19:52:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:34Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97579