A Handcrafted Tissue Microarray for a Matrix Arrangement of Tissue Samples

Introduction: Tissue microarray (TMA) was first designed to enable more efficient immunohistochemical screening of antibodies and tissues. However, due to the high cost of commercial TMA builder instrument, such method is not affordable for many pathology laboratories. Then, methodological adaptations have been proposed in order to reduce TMA-associated cost.

Methods: A manual leather puncher with an inner diameter of 2mm was used to collect a tissue sample from the donor paraffin block. The conventional TMA method was adopted as a control group.

Results: Empty paraffin recipient blocks were prepared and a standard 2-mm crochet needle was used to create 24 equidistant holes in the recipient block. Tissue cores obtained from the donor blocks were transferred to the holes in the recipient blocks and routine histopathological techniques were then performed.

Discussion: In this study we proposed a new approach to produce TMA recipient blocks as an alternative to the conventional TMA.