Accuracy of frozen sections in oral cancer resections, an experience of a tertiary care hospital

The aim our study was to determine the accuracy of frozen sections in oral cancer resections. Patients who underwent oral cancer resection at Patel Hospital were included in the study. Tissues for frozen sections were obtained from the mucosal margins and tumour bed. Frozen sections were compared with the paraffin embedded sections which served as the gold standard in our study. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, accuracy and kappa statistics were calculated. A total of 299 frozen sections were obtained from 77 patients who underwent oral cancer resection, mean (3.88±0.76). Frozen sections' sensitivity in relation to permanent sections was 72.7% and specificity of 93.9%. The overall accuracy of the test was 90.9%. Kappa value was calculated to be 0.642, which showed a moderate agreement. Frozen sections are accurate enough to be used in assessing intraoperative margin assessment for tumour clearance.