[Histonet] Re: Bone Marrows

[Robert Richmond]

We all knew and loved mercury-containing B-5 fixative, but it's gone
and it's not coming back. I've never found the zinc fixatives to be of
the slightest use. Remember also that immunostains often depend on
neutral buffered formalin fixation.

Neutral buffered formalin requires overnight fixation of bone marrow
specimens, and decalcification has to be timed properly.

Sections of bone marrow are of more and more diagnostic importance,
since more and more oncologists and medical technologists cannot
prepare a bone marrow smear, so that the pathologist has to depend on
tissue sections to make a diagnosis.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN