When a patient undergoes a surgical operation to remove a tumor or treat a disease, the course of surgery is often not predetermined. To decide how much tissue needs to be removed, surgeons must know more about the condition they are treating, including a tumor’s margins, its stage and whether a lesion is malignant or benign— determinations that often hinge upon collecting, analyzing, and diagnosing a disease while the patient is on the operating table.
Image: When surgeons send samples to a pathologist for examination, both speed and accuracy are of the essence. (CREDIT: Creative Commons)
