Frozen bone marrow trephine biopsy--a technical evaluation

The routine study of bone marrow trephine biopsies involves fixation, decalcification, paraffin-embedment, sectioning and staining. However, this process creates artifacts, produces shrinkage of tissue, consumes time and can result in sections of unsatisfactory cytological quality. It also renders the tissue unsuitable for enzyme-histochemical and immunohistochemical analyses. Frozen section of bone marrow without decalcification was evaluated as an alternative method for the study of bone marrow. This method was found to give sections with comparable cytological quality to that of paraffin-embedment, yielded sections for interpretation within 24 hours, and allowed enzyme-histochemical and immunohistochemical analyses to be applied successfully.