SECTIONING RESIN EMBEDDED TISSUE

MAKING LATTA-HARTMANN KNIVES

1. Place a strip of 8" long x 2" wide glass in the knife maker, so that the end is against the far stop on the left.

2. Clamp the glass in position and score across the complete width of the glass.

3. Place the glass in the vice, clamp and break.

4. Place a strip of 4" long x 2" wide glass in the knife maker, so that the end is against the middle stop.

5. Repeat step 2.

6. Repeat step 3.

7. Place the glass (2" x 2") in the knife maker so the side is against the stop on the right.

8. Score across approximately a quarter of the width of the glass.

9. Turn the glass through 90° and repeat step 8.

10. Repeat step 9.

11. Place the glass in the vice lining up with the central score; clamp and break glass in half.

12. Using the strip of glass 2" long x 1" wide produced from the previous step, repeat step 11.

13. Place the square piece of glass in the angle of the knife maker so that the free edge is against the right pin.

14. Clamp glass in position and score across the glass as far as possible. (The diagonal score will only be approximately half way).

15. Insert the glass in the vice lining up with the score, clamp and break in half to produce a Latta-Hartmann knife.

NOTE It will be necessary to turn over the glass for step 13 to be achieved, with 50% of the glass squares produced in step 12. For most blocks, knives of 10mm width will be satisfactory.

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SECTIONING

1. Clamp block stub into the Reichert-Jung Autocut so that the block is vertical to the knife edge.

2. Using a Latta-Hartmann knife on the Autocut carefully trim resin blocks until a representative area is reached.

3. Discard trimming knife in the sharps box provided and with a new knife cut sections at 1 or 2µ.

4. Pick the section off the block with the aid of a pair of fine forceps and transfer to a bath of ambient temperature water.

5. Following flattening of the section it is picked up on a clean slide and drained by standing against the hot plate.

6. When the section/slide is dry, place slide on the hot plate for at least 1 hour to complete drying before staining is commenced.

NOTE

All sections are cut at 2µ thick except lymph nodes which are cut at 1µ.

NOTE: No responsibility is assumed by The University of Nottingham or the Queens Medical Centre NHS Trust for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. It is the users responsibilty to ensure that all procedures are carried out according to appropriate Health and Safety requirements.

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© Copyright 1997 University of Nottingham Medical School Division of Histopathology. This page was last built on Mon, May 5, 1997 with Frontier. Thanks for looking in. Comments to James.Lowe@nottingham.ac.uk