[Histonet] liver in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (was abnormal liver tissue)

[Bob Richmond]

Kristin Alwine  MT, HTL (ASCP) at York Hospital, York PA asks:

>>We are in need of abnormal liver tissue for our PAS with and without
digestion controls. We are looking for tissue from a patient deficient in
alpha-1-antitrypsin. If you have any tissue to spare, please let me know!<<

Somebody must have this in good quantity, since patients with antitrypsin
deficiency occasionally undergo liver transplants. University of Pittsburgh
might be a good place to start.

I'd be content with normal liver as a control, though. In the one case I've
ever seen, the PAS positive granules were quite easy to see, in a middle
aged man presenting with cirrhosis whom my client had diagnosed as having
"alcoholic cirrhosis" (which is not a legitimate pathologic diagnosis). The
patient was a Baptist preacher who could easily have lost his job, and he
was quite angry. His internist ordered all tests until positive, and the
man turned out to be heterozygous for deficient AAT (the MZ genotype, I
suppose). The PAS-diastase stain on the biopsy quickly showed the granules.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Maryville TN