Peggy Wenk relays a question from another lab, about problems with microtomy 
of "adenomas" -

Uh, simple question from the ol' Samurai Pathologist - what kind of adenomas? 
The problems might depend on the anatomic origin. I suspect you mean tubular 
adenomas (adenomatous polyps) of the colon, which, for reasons I don't 
understand, are a bit more apt to chatter than are pieces of normal colon of 
roughly the same size. I don't know the reason for this, but the usual homely 
procedures - icing and so on - usually seem to take care of it.

Bob Richmond
Knoxvile TN
*******************
>>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.<<