Hitological procedures

BRANCE ML; BRUN LR

Experimental Surgical Models in the Laboratory Rat

CRC Press - Taylor and Francis Group

Lugar: Boca Ratón, FL. USA; Año: 2009; p. 221 - 227

The histological techniques are useful and can help in the surgery with animals. They allow verifying that the ablation of an organ has been done successfully or that a treatment has produced the desired effect on a particular tissue. A brief description of the basic histological techniques will appear in this chapter. The examination of the structures of cells, tissues or organs can be made immediately, in fresco with or without dyes. Cell or tissue structures can be also observed microscopically after fixing and dying. Immediate examination is done microscopically over alive elements of parts that survive a definite time. It can be done without any substance that modifies its aspect or with a vital stain. The latter can be classified as intravital staining, when the dye is introduced in the animal while it is alive or supravital staining, when the dye is added to structures that are preserved alive for a definite time, but outside the body. This kind of examinations are specially done when observing protozoa, erythrocytes, leucocytes and spermatozoids. The specimen is put between a slide and a cover glass with a drop of the liquid where the specimen comes from or another fluid such as plasma, serum o isotonic solutions. In order to avoid dehydratation, the cover glass must be sealed with vaseline or paraffin. In order to obtain long-life slides it is a necessity to apply definite techniques, which are described in a practical way.