[Histonet] USE OF AGAR AS A MWTHOD TO ORIENT SMALL SPECIMENS

[Gayle Callis]

Jackie makes an excellent point.  In addition to letting the histotechs 
orient small samples at embedding, provide your techs with good magnifiers 
to see the samples -  they come attached to embedding centers which tend to 
get in the way at times so we prefer to wear magnifying glasses instead. 
Safety glasses are available with bifocal magnifiers built right into 
lenses, and at different magnifications and you simply wear them OVER your 
prescription glasses.  There are flip up magnifiers that attach to 
prescription glasses, but if safety glasses are required, the flip models 
are probably inappropriate for safety regulations.  WE have 1.5 and 3X and 
love them.



At 02:10 PM 12/15/2005, you wrote:
>My personal experience is that if the sample is badly oriented in the
>agar,  you have no recourse to fix it.
>I don't like using agar.  A former lab used it for endocervical
>currettings, but the currettings were suspended in the agar - no way to
>get to them unless you serial sectioned the whole lump of agar.  Leave the
>orientation to the histotechs.

Gayle Callis
Research Histopathology Supervisor
Veterinary Molecular Biology
Montana State University - Bozeman
PO Box 173610
Bozeman MT 59717-3610
406 994-6367
406 994-4303 (FAX)