I am looking for a reason and a solution to a problem I am having with
frozen muscle biopsies.  The term we use is pie crust artifact, but
basically it looks like hills and valleys on the tissue.  The tissue is
rippled like it didn't stay put on the slide.  I thought it was static (but
we clean with acetone between each section, and use an anti-static brush in
the cryostat) or perhaps the type of coated slides we use but have tried
AES, Chrome, and commercial charged slides, and no coating at all with the
same effect.  This does not happen with every case or even within frozen
blocks of the same case, it does not matter who cuts the sections, this
artifact sometimes appears.  Within the sections there are some nice flat
areas of muscle and then areas where it is completely rippled, but each
slide is different.  As you can see I am having a real problem with this for
quite some time now, if anyone has any ideas or hints I would welcome them.
Has anyone ever come across this before?  Thanks.

Lorraine Hart, MLT
Senior Technologist in Charge
Pathology Laboratory
(613) 737-7600 X2241
hart@cheo.on.ca