The Significance of Floaters in the Nicks of Mohs Frozen Sections

Commentary: Does Preoperative Curettage Predispose to Floaters?

“…Also interesting is the fascinating and important study by Ingraffea and colleagues that suggests that taking another stage at the site of a floater may not be necessary because there does not appear to be more occult tumor at this margin. More data from additional sites may confirm this result.…”

“…We would like to thank Russell and colleagues for initiating this fruitful discussion and Ingraffea and colleagues for advancing the science in this area. Their work illustrates how Mohs surgeons continue to work consistently to minimize even the most minute sources of error in the processing of tissue and margin assessment.…”

Horizontal Relaxing Incisions Limit False Positives in Thick Mohs Sections

“…1,2 In MMS, floaters have been characterized as originating from a tissue piece discontiguous with the main excisional specimen. 3 These floaters can derive from the same tissue specimen (e.g., friable aggregate of neoplastic basaloid cells falling into sectioning plane) or from a different specimen (e.g., implantation onto slide from contamination with dirty microtome blade). 4 The "tethered floater" is a term the authors use to describe an extraneous tissue fragment on frozen section that originates from tissue that is still connected to the main specimen.…”

“…Even if a surgeon recognizes tethered floaters as a false positive, he or she may feel obligated to excise more tissue unnecessarily because of reluctance to conclude that a margin is clear when tumor cells are present. 3…”