Article Text
Abstract
Aims In the diagnostic or research field, there is a need that the histopathological evaluation provides as much information as possible, with the shortest time and lowest cost. The development of the tissue microarray (TMA) technology has significantly facilitated and accelerated studies with tissue analyses using in situ technologies. Nevertheless, one of the most recognised limitations of TMA is that the small cores used to construct a TMA may not accurately represent characteristics of the whole tissue specimen. The aim is to present the technical aspects of a simple system to construct tissue macroarrays (TMaAs), its advantages and limitations, and some results of its use in for research purposes.
Methods The study presents three possibilities of preparing the specimens with up to 6 mm diameter to be included into the TMaA paraffin block using our method.
Results With this technique, it was possible to obtain glass slides with multiple whole fragments, which were used in five different studies.
Conclusions We presented a method for construction of multi-TMaA paraffin blocks, which is very simple for optimising laboratory techniques requiring paraffin-embedded tissue sections and can be easily implemented in any institution with a histology laboratory.
- micro array
- laboratory management
- histopathology
- immunohistochemistry
- analytical methods
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Footnotes
Handling editor Runjan Chetty.
Contributor EPD: designed study, performed analyses and wrote the manuscript. BLSP: performed analysis and wrote the manuscript. VdeCBdS: performed analyses and reviewed the manuscript. KSGC: collected data, wrote the manuscript and reviewed the manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.