[Histonet] bone marrow aspirate

[Troutman, Kenneth A]

Hi Tim,

The best way I have found over the years actually requires the person collecting the specimen to do the most work.  What we used to do is after the aspirate is performed, make all of the smears, and then inject the remaining aspirate directly into formalin before it coagulates.  This gets rid of all the blood and ensures all that is left is marrow.  After sufficient time in formalin, filter the marrow out of the formalin and process.

As for a processing protocol, we do a run as follows:
Formalin 30 min
70% Alcohol 20 min
90% Alcohol 10 min
100% Alcohol 10 min
100% Alcohol 10 min
100% Alcohol 15 min
Xylene1 15 min
Xylene2 15 min
Xylene3 20 min
Paraffin1 15 min
Paraffin2 15 min
Paraffin3 30 min

This protocol was done with pressure/vacuum.

We have excellent results with this and the pathologists do not have to spend a lot of time hunting for small areas of marrow on the slide, the whole slide is marrow.

Good luck!

Ashley


Message: 5
Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 16:54:57 +0000
From: "Coskran, Timothy M" <timothy.m.coskran <@t> pfizer.com<mailto:timothy.m.coskran <@t> pfizer.com>>
Subject: [Histonet] bone marrow aspirate
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Does anyone have a protocol on how to fix and process a bone marrow aspirate to paraffin?

Thanks,
Tim Coskran
Pfizer