Frozen section- frozen attitudes.

Patients with breast cancer who have clinically negative axillae, tumors 2 cm in diameter or less, and tumors with a moderate or low degree of anaplasticity are candidates for treatment by local excision and irradiation. A definitive histologic diagnosis should be made in all cases of breast cancer before a final treatment decision is made. This can be accomplished by needle or excisional biopsy. After a histologic diagnosis is established, the decision regarding treatment can be arrived at with the patient enering into the process. Those patients requiring mastectomy will be better able to cope with this, knowing why the operation was considered best for them. The elimination of frozen section diagnosis will free the patient from one of the great fears of the current treatment of breast cancer- subjecting herself to biopsy without knowing what the outcome will be. It will free the surgeon from the rigid sequence of frozen section followed by mastectomy and allow him to begin to rationally assign patients with proper criteria to conservative treatment, reserving mastectomy for those who do not meet these criteria.