Over-dehydration of tissue during processing can result in a number of artifacts in the final sections.
Excessive dehydration occurs when molecularly bound water is removed in addition to free water.
Manifestations of excessive dehydration in the histologic section:
(1) micro-chatter around its edge
(2) hairline cracks
The usual cause is that the tissue spends too much time in the strongest dehydrating solution, usually absolute alcohol. A common situation is that a small biopsy is processed at the same settings as larger specimens.
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