i never put more than one piece into a cassette, thereby making 3-4 cassettes on each nail.
theni carefully face into each block  and wet the face of the block and set it on the ice tray for an hour. i smear a thin coat of sta-on each slide then carefully cut into the block. the very first 5-6 sections will be good. if you miss the first 5-6 sections you must soak i for annother hour.

-----Original Message-----
From: Melissa Jans [mailto:histomjans@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2002 9:52 AM
To: Anita Westbrook; histonet
Subject: Re: Sectioning and processing toenails

Anita,
After routine processing and embedding of our
toenails, we very carefully face into the blocks at ~4
microns (our normal cutting thickness).  If it starts
to get too crunchy or we think it might chunk out of
the block we will soak the block on Nair (hair
remover!).  We we usually soak the block for ~5
minutes and then face into it a little deeper.  We
will continue this process until we get a full face
section.  We will then soak a little longer on Nair
and then cut our final section for staining.  We have
found that soaking the blocks on Nair will cause the
sections to fall off PLUS slides but not regular
slides (we use stay-on in our waterbath) -go figure!!
Every lab is different, you may find the exact
opposite to be true for your lab.
Hope this helps!
Melissa Jans
Lead Scientist, Histology lab
University of Iowa Healthcare
--- Anita Westbrook <awestbr@sehosp.org> wrote:
> Can anyone offer some tips and techniques on
> processing and staining
> toenails and staining with a PAS stain for fungus.
> I am having trouble just
> getting the sections to stay on the slides if they
> don't "blow apart" first
> on the water bath!  There has to be a way, it's
> driving me nuts!!  Thanks
> for your suggestions.  Anita
>
>
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