General surgical pathology
Our PACI pathologists receive thousands of biopsy and surgical resection specimens annually. After the technical staff assigns accession numbers and labels the specimens and cassettes for identification purposes, pathology assistants and pathologists carefully examine and dissect the specimen. They sample the appropriate area for histological evaluation and transfer tissue into cassettes. The technical staff loads the tissue into machines for automated overnight processing. Paraffin embedding, sectioning onto glass slides, and hematoxylin/eosin (H&E) staining are done in the Histology Laboratory when processing is complete.
The next day, the pathologist carefully performs a histologic examination and diagnosis. If necessary our pathologists can ask Histology to perform additional special stains or immunohistochemical studies.
Pathologists are often asked to perform intraoperative examination of some specimens when an evaluation is needed to make an immediate decision about the surgical procedure. By rapidly freezing these specimens to -20ยบ C, a thin section can be made for histological evaluation. Frozen section results are communicated to the surgeon within a few minutes of receipt.
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