Surgical Margins and Its Evaluation in Oral Cancer: A Review

The main surgical goal while treating cancer is to remove all local malignant disease with no residual malignant cells left. Overall benefits of achieving negative resection margins in terms of disease free local recurrence and overall survival has been discussed in many studies. The quantity of normal tissue to be removed during surgical procedure has not been standardised. Local recurrence can also occur among tumours with extensive histological demonstration of adequate resection margins. Oral cavity, submandibular region, tonsil and pharynx are the sites which have high chances of recurrence, even after showing negative margins. Therefore, the current approaches for histological risk assessment and various methods of evaluation of the surgical margins with their limitations are briefed in the present article.