Role of Dilute Alcohol in the Removal of Fine Wrinkles from Paraffin Sections, a Histo-Technical Study

Tweet about this on TwitterShare on FacebookEmail this to someoneShare on Google+

Naveen Kumar; Satheesha Nayak B.; S. N. Somayaji & Sadananda Nayak

Summary

Histotechnology is concerned with processing and preparing of the body tissue in such a manner as to enable a satisfactory study of it. Section cutting is an integral part of histology and histopathology. It is an art by itself requiring skill and knowledge on the part of technician or the person who needs to do section cutting. In the routine method of preparing paraffin sections, it is often encountered by the presence of artefacts like fine wrinkles or folds. Attempts have been made to remove the wrinkles by floating the sections in the warm water bath. However this method has not been able to remove all the wrinkles from the sections. We have designed a simple and reliable method, in which the paraffin sections were floated over the ethyl alcohol diluted with water (1:15) before they were placed in the water bath. Through this method, we have been able to get the wrinkle free sections of superior quality. The advantage of our method is that, it is easy to prepare the dilute alcohol and is cost effective. This method can be used by the histology and pathology technicians and the researchers.

KEY WORDS: Histological techniques; Section cutting; Microtomy; Wrinkles; Dilute alcohol.

How to cite this article

KUMAR, N.; NAYAK, B. S.; SOMAYAJI, S. N. & NAYAK, S. Role of dilute alcohol in the removal of fine wrinkles from paraffin sections, a histo-technical study. Int. J. Morphol., 30(1):45-48, 2012.