Dear Penny,

Tough one, it's hard to believe that undissolved salts would infiltrate or

adhere too only one tissue type.

Is there by chance any microcalcification?

From another angle, is the knife angle to blame?

If the other tissue types are all sectioning well, try a slight increase/
decrease

in knife angle when cutting adenomas.

Also, try cutting these troublesome samples at cooler/ warmer temps.

A curious problem! David

-----Original Message-----
From: Lee & Peggy Wenk [mailto:lpwenk@mail.netquest.com]
Sent: Thursday, 3 August 2000 18:42
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: ADENOMA


Question from another lab.

Any idea why small biopsies of adenoma would be
hard and crunchy to section, with lots of microchatter?
Yet all other small biopsies (GI, skin, liver) run on
the same processor are fine, cut great, look great?

The schedule is (if I remember correctly) - 2 formalin,
1 70%, 1 80%, 3 95%, 2 100%, 2 xylene, 3 paraffin.
No heat on any stations except paraffin, which is 59 degrees.

Now the kicker - The adenomas used to cut OK when they
had 10% UNBUFFERED formalin in the processor (trying to
speed up the fixation rate). They have switched to
10% BUFFERED formalin, and everything still cuts
great except the adenomas.

Any and all (reasonable) suggestions/explanations
are encouraged.

Peggy A. Wenk, HTL(ASCP)
William Beaumont Hospital
Royal Oak, MI 48073