Subject: [Histonet] Zinc formalin on human renal biopsies

[Steven E. Slap]

Hi Teri & HistoNetters

Given that you only fixed the pancreas for three hours in the Zinc 
Formalin, I wonder whether your problem isn't just underfixation, as 
opposed to the overnight fixation in formalin.  The dryness and 
brittleness could be due to exposure to alcohols before the tissue 
was properly fixed.

Just a thought...

Steven Slap

>At 01:15 PM 4/27/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>  >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?
>>
>