What an interesting thought - to do it with WARM water. I have been placing
pre-trimmed blocks onto ice that has paper toweling on top and is moistened
(but not flooded!) for years. By the time I get back to my first block, it
has  been adequately soaked and I have plenty of sections that are usable
before the tissue starts drying out. I happen to prefer this method because
it saves on knife blade usage and chills the block at the same time that it
is soaking it. (Do you have a problem with compression, or do you chill your
blocks AFTER the warm soak?) Regards,
Sue O'Brien
Histology Supervisor
Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital
Cape May Court House, NJ  08210
e-mail: histo@bthosp.com

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	NEVADUNNE@aol.com [SMTP:NEVADUNNE@aol.com]
	Sent:	Wednesday, October 27, 1999 8:16 PM
	To:	histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
	Subject:	warm water block soak

	Hi everyone,
	    I'm an old war-horse HT working in a small community hospital
doing
	routine histology. I'm just curious if anyone else has used a warm
water soak
	for their paraffin blocks (after facing) to improve sectioning. I
have found
	this technique very helpful in the sectioning of brittle biopsies
and bloody
	specimens. The crushed ice and water soak prior to sectioning allows
a few
	good sections after soak, but the warm water soak lets us get
several ribbons
	 before we encounter dried out tissue. This has cut down on chatter,
time
	spent re-soaking and over-all quality of sections.
	Any feedback?

	Maureen Tomblin HT(ASCP)
	Union Hospital
	Elkton, MD