Clean margin

Overview
A clean margin is a medical term referring to the attempt in surgical oncology to resect a tumor with no portion of the malignant growth on microscopic examination by a pathologist extending past a set delineation known as the 'tumor margin'.

This is an important issue in areas that are functionally important (ie. large vessels like the aorta or vital organs), or in areas for which the extent of surgery is minimized due to aesthetic concerns (ie. melanoma of the face or squamous cell carcinoma of the penis.