I don't deal with breast tissue but with fatty skin, in my experience
alcohols don't de-fat very well at all. We place the fatty tissue in a
mixture of equal parts of absolute alcohol and ether for approx. 1hour (
after complete fixation) then onto the processing machine on a normal
run overnight. I stress that the tissue must be fixed properly! 
Mike
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Laurie Reilly [mailto:Laurie.Reilly@jcu.edu.au]
Sent: Friday, 30 May 2003 1:05 PM
To: Histolady710@aol.com; HISTONET@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: Re: Breast Tissue
 
Hi Histolady and all,
Fatty tissue can be helped by putting a "defatting" cycle on the
processor.
Tissues are processed in graded ethanols (70,80, 90, 95 and Absolute)
,then xylene and then back into Absolute ethanol to complete
dehydration, then more xylene to remove the ethanol and then into
paraffin.
Because there is so much fat, the ethanol can't dehydrate the tissue
properly. The first xylene dissolves out the fat and then the ethanol
can complete the dehydration.

                   Regards,   Laurie.

At 04:27 PM 05/29/03 -0400, Histolady710@aol.com wrote:


Does anyone out there in histoland have any suggestions for fatty breast
tissue processing?  We are having a terrible time getting some of our
breast tissue fixed well.    Thanks in advance for your responses. 
Mr.Laurie Reilly                                              Ph 07 4781
4468
Physiology & Pharmacology                           Fax  07 4779  1526
Aust.Inst.of Tropical Vet.& Animal Sc.    
James Cook University     
Townsville  Qld. 4811
laurie.reilly@jcu.edu.au                                             
Australia.