Atlas of breast cancer early detection

Breast tissues must be handled and fixed with care to enable the pathologist to give a complete and accurate diagnosis. A specimen received by the histopathology laboratory goes through several procedures before its microscopic features are evaluated by a pathologist. The processing of tissue at the histopathology laboratory includes:

• grossing of the specimens;
• obtaining appropriate tissue sections;
• processing of the tissue through a series of chemical reagents;
• embedding in paraffin;
• cutting thin sections and mounting on slides; and
• staining with H&E.

These techniques are described in the next sections.