Try placing your trimmed blocks face down on a tray of ice for 10-20
minutes. You will also find that you can section even solid blood clot and
infarcted spleen etc without any problems. In fact it's pretty good for
almost every tissue you cut except fatty tissues and lipomas.
Regards Mike (Downunder)
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Ball <xryhisto@ovis.net>
To: histonet@Pathology.swmed.edu <histonet@Pathology.swmed.edu>
Date: Thursday, 18 February 1999 12:14
Subject: Thyroid cutting problem


>Ran across a thyroid the other day that gave me nothing but problems when I
>cut it. I have had very little problens with this type of tissue unless it
>happens to be calcified. This particular thyroid cut like it had sand in
it.
>I checked it for microcalcification and found none. I re/embedded it
>thinking there may be dirt in the wax, but alas this did not help. Other
>than the sandy texture to the tissue it appeared adequately fixed and
>processed. The staing was good once I got a section. this problem was not
>isolated to just one block. there were a total of three blocks that cut
this
>way. I even tried decacify in the block again no dice. Is there a
particular
>condition that might cause this to happen. Thank in advance for any light
>someone may be able to shed on this question
>
>