Re: soaking blocks
Hi, I'm responding to the question of soaking blocks. I work in a cancer
research lab and 98% of our tissue comes from mice, rats, but also from
sheep and pigs. For the small mouse tissue we use only 30 minutes in each
solution on the VIP or also on our LX300 tissue processors. For all the
larger animal specimens including the rats and hamsters we use one hour in
each solution.
I believe more important than the time is the solutions we use. We use
Flex 100 at different dilutions and for the clearant we use the Pro Par.
It is much easier on animal tissue than regular alcohols or xylene. We
also use three changes of paraffin and have that temperature set at 58
degrees. I am going to try Pro Soft dehydrants as I've heard they are
more gentle for animal tissue but my order hasn't come in yet. I hope
this helps. I'd be interested in knowing your schedule also.
Karen Dulany
Eppley Institute for Cancer Research
Omaha, Nebraska
Otis Lyght
<lyght@ciit.o To: Connie McManus
rg> <conmac@cc.usu.edu>
cc:
04/04/01 histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
10:05 AM Subject: Re: soaking
blocks
Hi All,
Seems there is lots of discussion of "block soaking". I work in a lab that
deals with animal tissue. We soak liver blocks sometimes for up to 2 hours
and tissues sometimes still appears to be dry when mounted on the slide.
Would anyone who is soaking or not soaking share their tissue processing
schedule. Our total processing time runs approx. 7 hours for mice and 8
hours for rat (three hours of this is 3 paraffin changes with the remainder
being dehydrating and clearing). Would love to get some feedback on this.
Thanks.
Otis Lyght
At 08:10 AM 3/15/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Renee,
>
>you soak your blocks for 10-15 MINUTES???? wow. I work with vet stuff,
>too and find that only the livers, spleens and sometimes kidneys (if
>there is a lot of blood in them) are about the only tissues I soak. And
>I only soak for 10-30 SECONDS. I try to minimize soaking, but for
>bloody, friable tissues, it can't be helped.
>
>Connie M
>
>Renee Escalona wrote:
> >
> > I'll have to admit, soaking blocks over night on ice does seem a little
> excessive. I work in a veterinary lab so of course all we do is process
> and cut animal tissue. I would say that on average we let our blocks
> soak and chill for about 10-15 minutes.
> >
> > Renee Escalona, BS, HTL(ASCP)
> > Diagnostic Laboratory Supervisor
> > Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab
> > College Station, TX
>
>--
>ÐÏࡱá
<< Previous Message | Next Message >>