[Histonet] Re: Zinc formalin and 10% NBF

[Johnson, Teri]

In working through our processing schedule dilemma, we fixed some
pancreas in NBF (overnight), and fixed some in Zinc Formalin for 3
hours, followed by water wash and storage in 70% ethanol.  We found that
using a variety of processing schedules, the NBF fixed pancreas looked
good with routine 30 min/station (with 2 hours total time in paraffin),
all the way down to 10 min/station (with 80 min total time in paraffin).
The Zinc Formalin fixed pancreas looks dry and brittle still, even with
the short processing schedule.
 
It was amazing to see how firm and grayish the tissue was as compared to
the NBF fixed tissue, within even an hour of fixation time.
 
We will try a hand-processing schedule for these to see if we can get
the processing perfect for the ZnF pancreas.  Our answer to this problem
could be that we need to limit the amount of time it is in fixative.
Gayle, how long were the kidney biopsies fixed before processing?
 

Teri Johnson
Managing Director Histology Facility
Stowers Institute for Medical Research
1000 E. 50th St.
Kansas City, Missouri  64110
tjj <@t> stowers-institute.org