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. 2021 Jun 29;11:13456. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-92644-8

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© The Author(s) 2021

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Flowchart of treatment options for early stage breast cancer. (a) In current clinical practice, the lumpectomy specimen is removed; after completion of the surgery, the specimen is sent to pathology for analysis. Positive margin results require additional surgeries, either a second lumpectomy or conversion to mastectomy. In contrast, (b) shows an improved workflow, in which the specimen margin analysis happens within the operating room, mid-surgery. This would provide the surgeon with immediate feedback, enabling additional tumor removal during a single surgery for a higher likelihood of negative margins.