Optic nerve tissue shrinkage during pathologic processing after enucleation for retinoblastoma.

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Abstract
SHRINKAGE OF tissue in the pathology laboratory before and during fixation and processing is a widely recognized phenomenon. Surgical specimens shrink when exposed to air, and histologic preparations such as formalin fixation, alcohol, and paraffin embedding can cause tissue to retract, resulting in differences between in vivo and excised fixed-tissue dimensions. Although retraction has been observed in previous studies in many different tissue types, 1-16 to our knowledge, no previous report has assessed optic nerve shrinkage. Because of scanning electron microscopy of several tissue types, this effect has been attributed to the miniaturization of organelles.17 Tumor clearance margins assessed from fixed tissue can be misleading, particularly if there are differences in the responses of normal and tumor tissues to fixation.18 Such differences as well as increased shrinkage rates in specimens from younger patients have been reported.18,19