METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATED REPROCESSING OF TISSUE SAMPLES

摘要

A method and apparatus of automatically reprocessing a specimen for microscopic exam-ination is disclosed. Processing of a specimen for microscopic examination involves fixation of the specimen and preparation of the embedded specimen from the fixed specimen. There are instances where, once a specimen has been pro-cessed, it is necessary to reprocess the specimen due to contamination of reagents during process-ing or inadequate fixation. The system automati-cally reprocesses a specimen by removing resid-ual embedding material from the specimen with a clearing agent, removing the clearing agent with a dehydrating agent, and removing the dehydrat-ing agent with an aqueous fluid.