[Histonet] Cautery-Like Artefact

[joelle weaver]

I have had experience with various artifacts with rapid,  microwave- assisted processing, including where it does resemble cautery artifact (  especially with skin, other highly polar tissue types, and liver cores) . It seems to have to do with the mechanism of heating with microwaves and the tissue types.  After I did a little research on the physics of MW energy and the amount of resistance & heat generation to MW energy of different of tissues, ( related to polarity-water),  I was able to draw conclusions about causes and effects on different tissues. Sometimes people want to work with this as with conventional processing- but it works differently, and has different variables. The thickness and surface area are even more important, but also the MW cycles and other fine details of the energy/heat during the program have to be optimized. I recall you can view this in the operating system of the instrument in a graph, and I was able to work with the vendor to assist with the task of refining the programs. 




Joelle Weaver MAOM, HTL (ASCP) QIHC
 
> Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 19:55:07 -0400
> From: renafail2 <@t> gmail.com
> To: rheyna <@t> lumc.edu
> Subject: Re: [Histonet] Cautery-Like Artefact
> CC: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
> 
> Is it possible the specimens are drying out bon the edges before being
> placed in fixative?
> Rena Fail
> 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 4:55 PM, Roger Heyna <rheyna <@t> lumc.edu> wrote:
> 
> > We are experiencing a staining artefact on our H&E's, most commonly seen
> > on skin specimens, but also observed on other specimen types as well.
> >
> > Within the dermis and subcutaneous regions of the skin specimens, there
> > are portions of what should be collagen that appear homogenized and stained
> > with hematoxylin, instead of the
> > usual eosin staining. It's often on the edge of the section and varies in
> > size between different specimens. The pathologist is normally able to read
> > around it, but there have been cases that were made more difficult to
> > diagnosis by this artefact.
> >
> > Our pathologists believe this artefact resembles cautery artefact, but the
> > dermatologists insist they are not using cautery during collection.
> >
> > We have a large derm service, and most of our derm specimens fix
> > overnight. We have both microwave and conventional processing, and the
> > "artefact" specimens have been processed on both. All of these specimens
> > have grossing ink on them.
> >
> > Any thoughts on what could be causing this? If it's not cautery, does it
> > seem like a fixation issue? Has anyone seen grossing ink affect processing?
> >
> > Thanks ahead of time for your help.
> > Roger
> >
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