surgical margin


surgical margin

The border of a tissue specimen that has been removed surgically from the body. It is often marked with an indelible dye to make it easily visible to the pathologist.

Patient care

When obtaining biopsy specimens from a patient, the practitioner's goal is to obtain a tissue specimen that completely surrounds the lesion, so that the margins are free, i.e. not visibly penetrated by tumor cells.

 Synonym: margin of resectionSee also: margin