Bone marrow biopsy specimens can be decalcified with a variety of commercial and home-brewed decalcifiers. Always you have to make sure you don't leave the specimen in the decalcifier for too long.
All decalcifiers leach out iron (hemosiderin). The iron stain should be done on the undecalcified clot or particle section (though I find this is almost never done). The iron stain should also be done on one of the marrow smears. Avoiding the leaching effect of fixatives is important, but even more important, the pathologist needs to look for ringed sideroblasts in the smears stained with the Perls prussian blue reaction. These usually can't be seen in sections. Bob Richmond Samurai Pathologist Knoxville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet