Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE
(ISSN 1009-3095, Monthly)

2005   Vol. 6B   No. 9   p.853-858

Application of new tissue microarrayer−ZM-1 without recipient paraffin block

MENG Pan-qing^1,2, HOU Gang², ZHOU Gui-ying³, PENG Jia-ping¹, DONG Qi¹, ZHENG Shu^†‡1

(¹Cancer Institute, Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310009, China)
(²Tai’an Central Hospital of Shandong, Tai’an 271000, China)
(³Department of Mechanical Engineering, Advanced Technology School of Tai’an, Tai’an 271000, China)
^†E-mail: zhengshu@zju.edu.cn
Received July 2, 2005; revision accepted July 28, 2005

Abstract: The ZM-1 tissue microarrayer designed by our groups is manufactured in stainless steel and brass and contains many features that make TMA (tissue microarray) paraffin blocks construction faster and more convenient. By means of ZM-1 tissue microarrayer, biopsy needles are used to punch the donor tissue specimens respectively. All the needles with the punched specimen cylinders are arrayed into the array-board, with an array of small holes dug to fit the needles. All the specimen cylinders arraying and the TMA paraffin block shaping are finished in only one step so that the specimen cylinders and the paraffin of the TMA block can very easily be incorporated and the recipient paraffin blocks need not be made in advance, and the paraffin used is the same as that for conventional pathology purpose. ZM-1 tissue microarrayer is easy to be manufactured, does not need any precision location system, and so is much cheaper than the currently used instrument. Our method’s relatively cheap and simple ZM-1 tissue microarrayer technique of constructing TMA paraffin block may facilitate popularization of the TMA technology.

Key words: Tissue microarray (TMA), Construction technique, Method
doi:10.1631/jzus.2005.B0853             CLC number: R735.3

^‡ Corresponding Author