Re: Paraffin blocks

From:Barry Rittman <brittman@mail.db.uth.tmc.edu>

Dina
I must disagree with you about not sealing the surface of cut paraffin blocks.
While you have experienced no problems, many labs do. Blocks with a tissue surface
exposed can be subjected to drying, attack by various insect and fungal pests and
so on. Considering the amount of time required to seal the blocks I think that it
should be done on a routine basis for any block that needs to be archived for later
use.
Barry

dgaupp@tulane.edu wrote:

> Dear Andrea,
>
> Paraffin blocks can be stored at room temperature.  There is a block filer from
> Fisher Scientific called HistoPrep Modular File Drawers, cat # 15-182-511.  I
> worked for a hospital were every patient having surgery, received a surgical
> number.  We label our cassettes(blocks) with that surgical number, which was
> filed in numerical order.  There is a pen you can buy through Fisher Scientific
> to write on your cassette blocks.  Also, there is no need to seal your tissues
> with paraffin after it has been cut on.  Yes, we do leave the cut surface of
> the tissue exposed.  In fact, we recut tissues years down the line. The tissue
> comes out just fine.  Good Luck!!
>
> Happy New Year,
>
> Dina




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