Do you routinely collect debulking specimens for paraffin-embedded or frozen section staining prior to taking a Mohs layer for all skin cancers?
If not, what tumor characteristics prompt you to collect debulking specimens for paraffin or frozen section staining?
Answer from: at Academic Institution
There should rarely be a need to send debulked specimens for paraffin sections. Tumors that can be histologically challenging can be debulked and processed as positive controls when doing Mohs micrographic surgery. However, when a frozen section, whether a layer or a debulked specimen, is processed ...
Debulking and sending for paraffin sections is mostly unnecessary. I will do it more commonly for DFSPs if my own frozen section debulk suggests fibrosarcomatous change, or if there is some other high-risk feature in a tumor as suggested above by Dr. @Ally-Khan Somani. So, for me, very selectively.I...
The majority of the time, there is no need to send a Mohs debulk for permanent sections. Sending a debulk for permanent section pathology is helpful in rare cases. If I am concerned about sampling error for a high-risk SCC, I very rarely will send a debulk to examine the tumor for PNI/LVI, depth of ...