Theresa,

Spin them down and use histogel to clump the cells together.  Wrap the
cell-filled histo-gel in lens paper, put it in a cassette & process as
usual.  

Good Luck,

Glen D.

-----Original Message-----
From: Therersa Stegall [mailto:STEGTM@samcstl.org]
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 10:33 AM
To: HISTONET@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: Wow! I recently subscribed to this list so that our lab could
have access/input from other working


Wow!  I recently subscribed to this list so that our lab could have
access/input from other working histotechs.  After I sifted and deleted
quite a few emails, I can see that the list is an interesting place. 
Guess I'll step up and introduce myself:  I work in a medium-sized
hospital path lab; surgicals, endos, cytologys, et al.... We stain
routinely Harris regressive H&E, do frozen sections as needed daily, do
not have any PA's, have 5 pathologists who rotated gross sectioning
throughout the day, 4 histotechs, one accessionist/lab assistant.  We
fight over things almost daily, being human and all, shakily work as a
team, but our turnaround time is one day for routine surgicals and
biopsies.  We don't care if this is statistical, normal, or anything
else resembling standardly deviant behavior; it works for us, and keeps
the surgeons and pathologists from bothering us too much.  
  I subscribed to this list for input/information (as previously
stated): a question: What do you (at large) use to help coagulate thin
fluids (eg. pleural, acites, peritoneal, etc.) that are not "chunky" nor
gelatinous so that a cell block may be obtained.  The pathologists are
just not satisfied with only cytospins anymore, and if the pathologists
aren't happy.....
We cannot use Carnoy's anymore (no ether allowed), and I don't like the
mess involved with agar, and am zoophobic in messing with that!   Any
quick, clean suggestions (have any of you had success with just adding a
few drops of formalin before centrifuging) ???  I'll be waiting to
hear.
                                                     Peace,   Terre