[Histonet] Brain - Question and advise

[Rene J Buesa]

If you will receive brain tumors, you should not worry about prions. On the other hand, you should ask the referring physicians the nature of the lesion to be on the "safe" side.
The special procedural "tips" for brains can be summed up as: 
1- make sure they are fixed correctly (at least 48 hours fixation) and the thickness of the slices should be about 2mm
2- dehydration must be perfect and gradual
3- increase the "infiltration" step at twice the time of your standard protocol
4- section thickness should be 5 µm and if you are going to do any silver stains, increase it to 8 µm so you can demonstrate the neuronal web
5- the H&E setup can be the standard you use
6- cool the blocks before sectioning
René J. 


________________________________
From: Histo Histo <feulgenreaction <@t> gmail.com>
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu 
Sent: Monday, October 8, 2012 1:12 AM
Subject: [Histonet] Brain - Question and advise

Hi all,

Our company is planning to start receiving formalin fixed,human brain tumor
samples from their clients. I have not personally worked with brain in my
career and was hoping to get some pointers from my fellow histoneters.

I was hoping to get some advise on the following:
- Any special precautions needed to be taken when handling these samples
(prions, ect)?
- Section thickness
- Staining setup for H&E
- Common artifacts
- Any other pointers you may have.

Thank you in advance!

- F
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