A comparison of routine and rapid microwave tissue processing in a surgical pathology laboratory - Quality of histologic sections and advantages of microwave processing

Rapid processing of histopathologic material is becoming increasingly desir able to fulfill the needs of clinicians treating acutely ill patients. Trad itional techniques for rapid processing of paraffin-embedded tissues requir e 4 to 5 hours, delaying treatment for some critically ill patients and req uiring additional shifts of technologists in the laboratory. Microwave proc essing further shortens this time, allowing even more rapid histopathologic diagnosis. Few data exist comparing quality of microwave-processed tissue with that processed by more traditional techniques. We randomly selected 158 paired specimens from 111 patients. One member of the pair was processed routinely overnight, while the other was processed r outinely overnight, while the other was processed by the rapid microwave te chnique. The slides then were compared for quality of histologic preparatio n in a blinded fashion by 2 pathologists. Eight routinely processed specimens were judged as suboptimal, while 6 micr owave-processed specimens were judged as suboptimal and 1 was considered un satisfactory for evaluation. In the remaining cases, the material obtained by the 2 techniques was considered of identical quality. Microwave processi ng considerably shortens the preparation time for permanent histologic sect ions without a demonstrable decrease in section quality or "readability."