UC San Diego -- Every year more than 100,000 women in the United States undergo a lumpectomy, a conservative procedure to remove cancerous tumors while preserving the breast. The surgeon’s goal is to attain a tumor-free, or negative, surgical margin the first time they operate. Current surgical tools may cause heat damage to the tissue samples needed for examination by a pathologist in order to identify the presence of cancerous cells on the edges of tumors.
