Confused about 'Margins'

Hello. Am not medical but would like to think I can help. When you have surgery imagine the lump is say a 5p piece but they take away the size of a 10 p piece which is bigger so that the cancer is removed but there is a margin of good cells around it which are also removed which means clear margins. I had a magseed implanted before surgery to pinpoint my lump for the surgeon but they'll usually only tell if they got clear margins when the lump goes to pathology to be checked. Hope this helps x

Yes, the margin is the area around the tumour that they hope is clear of cancer. So often it’s a 1cm ring around the tumour. When I recently had a 1.7cm cancer removed they removed an extra centimetre round it - a margin - which was tested and found to be clear of cancer cells. But they couldn’t get clear margins in my right breast so I had to have a mastectomy. The chemo will hope to create some margins by killing cancer cells round the tumour

Hi Tired Minion thank you so much for your reply. Yes this really does help. I'm having chemo to shrink a 3-5cm tumour so hopefully it shrinks enough to at least leave some breast there  thanks again xx

Hi Anabrock, that now makes sense. Thank you so much for your reply. Xx