Description and Dissection

After reception of a specimen, it must be described, measured and dissected in order to make a record of the macroscopic appearance of the sample both internally and externally and also to select portions of the material to be processed - to make microscope preparations or 'slides'. This process is done at a dissection session known as a "cut-up".

Specimens may be very small, for example endoscopy specimens from the stomach or intestine may only be a few millimetres in diameter. On the other hand large - whole organs, such as this kidney, are common. kidney - picture from IBMS
Everything is measured and in some cases, such as this gastric ulcer, photographed. ulcer - picture from IBMS
Small samples of the specimens are selected for further examination and are isolated for further processing in special cassettes bearing the unique case number which was assigned when the specimen was booked in and, usually, an identifying code naming that particular cassette. A case may have just one cassette or many. processing cassettes
Once the cut-up is finished and all the specimens have been sampled, the cassettes are left for some time to complete fixation and are then loaded into a tissue processing machine for further treatment.