Preparing Fresh Tissues for the Microscope

A prospective assessment of the reliability of frozen section to direct intraoperative decision making in endometrial cancer

“…The seed impetus for this exercise was the perceived need of the contemporary surgeons, portrayed by a classic quote of Dr William Mayo to Dr Wilson: "I wish you pathologists could tell us if a tissue is cancer or not while the patient is on the table" [19]. With more than a century of experience since 1905, our institution's practice of frozen section evaluation has served our patients in a remarkable way [20].…”

Stabilization of Tissue Specimens for Pathological Examination and Biomedical Research

“…4,7,[18][19][20] The most commonly used freezing technique involves immersion of the sample in an ultra-cold bath of quenching fluid such as liquid nitrogen or isopentane. 6,17,19,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] Briefly, a bath of isopentane in a metal container is cooled using a liquid nitrogen bath to the stage where the isopentane starts to solidify around the edges, resulting in a temperature of about -150°C. A tissue sample is dissected into small pieces and transferred to standard cryovials and frozen by immersing the sealed cryovial into the isopentane bath.…”

Pathologic diagnosis in head and neck practice: how fast is fast enough?

“…Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has raised the process of rendering lightning-fast surgical pathology diagnoses to a real art form [1][2][3]. Surgeons removing tumors in their operating rooms can expect a relatively comprehensive pathologic diagnosis within 10 or 15 min in most instances, courtesy of frozen section examination.…”