Surgical Margin Definition and Assessment in Head and Neck Oncology: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Canadian Head and Neck Surgeons

Importance. Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) are responsible for a significant amount of morbidity and mortality in Canada. Surgical margins are one of the most important factors used to guide treatment; however, currently there is a lack of consensus on the ideal surgical margin definition, sampling, and assessment method. Objective. To understand the current perspectives and practice patterns of Canadian head and neck surgeons with respect to surgical margin: (1) definition, (2) sampling, (3) pathological assessment. Design. A 24-question cross-sectional survey was sent via email through the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery (CSOHNS), and responses were gathered from December 19, 2023, to March 12, 2024. Responses were aggregated and reported using descriptive statistics. Setting/Participants. The survey was conducted in Canada among self-reported staff head and neck oncology surgeons with membership in the CSOHNS. Results. A total of 36 staff head and neck oncology surgeons responded from across Canada. The most common (58.3%) definition of a negative surgical margin for oral cavity HNSCC was ">5 mm formalin fixed paraffin embedded distance." To obtain surgical margins, surgeons were split with 44.1% using only a tumor bed approach and 32.4% using only a specimen-driven approach. A dedicated head and neck pathologist is always available more commonly for final pathological assessment (63.6%) versus intraoperative frozen section assessment (15.5%). Finally, most surgeons reported having a synoptic standardized reporting system for annotating margin status (78.8%). Conclusions/Relevance. The results of this survey provide a current-state analysis of head and neck surgeons across Canada and set the stage for future efforts to be directed toward standardizing the collection method and reporting criteria for surgical margins in HNSCC.