Automated embedding

[caffeinegirl]

Anybody have any experience with Automated Embedding Systems (Sakura has one) with sectionable cassettes? Dr. Cockerell published his experience using this process in Am J Dermpath (October). Seems like it works well for derm/skin specimens. Anybody have any experience with other small biopsies such as GI and cores?

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[coroner]

Interesting, never heard of these. I would imagine one would have to be at a very high volume place before they broke even on a piece of equipment like this. My guess is the intial orientation of specimens when grossing them in cassesttes would have to be very precise e.g. temporal arteries, shave bxs., vas deferens, etc. as you would not have a histotech doing the [re]orientation as they would be if manually embedded. Probably would be hard to screw up a GI bx though. Any idea how much these cost? Are you going to pitch this idea to your lab/colleagues? I'm sure your histotechs would love it if you cut down their prep time as long as it didn't affect their hours/paycheck...

 

[caffeinegirl]

Dr. Cockerell mentioned that their volume is about 25K slides (not blocks), and he only discussed skins (shaves, punches, small excisions) in his paper. Not sure about cost, but it would definitely be a time-saver, as embedding is our rate-limiting step in our histology workflow. Just wondering if others have used this in their labs.

http://www.sakura.eu/products/showitem.asp?cat=7&subcat=83

 

[Over9000]

If this consistently works, you could cut down a huge portion of your histotech staff and have the machines running 24/7.