[Histonet] Re: B5

[Robert Richmond]

Richard Cartun notes:

>>No one should be using B5. If your pathologist won't take "No" for
an answer, get your safety officer involved. We stopped using B5 many
years ago and now use only formalin.<<

I agree completely. This is a dead issue. You can't use B5, or other
fixatives containing mercury such as Zenker's fixative. I don't think
any present fixative offers significant advantages over neutral
buffered formalin. You have to prepare the specimen properly (thin
sections of lymph node) and fix overnight. - I, too, lament the
passing of mercury and chromium fixatives.

Richard Cartun - I was in residency with a pathologist named Martin
Berman who was on the staff of Hartford Hospital for quite a while. He
seems to have dropped off the face of the eartth. Do you know him?

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN