The frozen section in lymphadenectomy for carcinoma of the prostate.

From January 1969 through August 1982 we performed 257 pelvic lymph node dissections for staging of carcinoma of the prostate. One or more lymph nodes were submitted for frozen section in 100 cases (39 per cent): 43 (43 per cent) had positive nodes on frozen and permanent sections, while frozen section was negative in 57 (57 per cent). Of the latter 57 cases (16 per cent) had positive nodes on paraffin sectioning of all tissue submitted. Thus, in our series there was a 16 per cent chance of overlooking metastatic disease at the time of pelvic lymph node dissection even with the aid of intraoperative frozen sections.