Inexpensive and precise paraffin tissue microarrays constructed with a computer numerical control (CNC) drilling machine.

摘要

Sir: Introduced by Battifora in 1986 as a multitumour (sausage) tissue block and brought to perfection by Kononen et al. in 1998, paraffin tissue microarrays (PTMAs) are paraffin blocks containing up to 1000 cylindrical paraffin tissue core biopsies (PTCBs). PTMAs can be used for high-throughput molecular profiling of tumour specimens or for quality control in immunohistochemistry ('on slide control'). According to the commonly used technique as described by Kononen et al., the holes in the recipient block (PTMA) and the tissue samples are punched with paraffin tissue punches (needles with stylets) with different diameters. These PTMAs are commonly constructed using a manual tissue puncher/arrayer, which costs at least dollar 7000 (pound 3500) (Beecher Instruments, Sun Prairie, WI, USA). To lower the costs of PTMAs and to facilitate and accelerate PTMA construction, we looked for an alternative technique for their production.