title: A handcrafted tissue microarray for a matrix arrangement of tissue samples.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Tissue microarray (TMA) was first designed to enable more efficient immunohistochemical screening of antibodies and tissues. However, due to the high cost of commercial TMA builder instrument, such method is not affordable for many pathology laboratories. Then, methodological adaptations have been proposed in order to reduce TMA-associated cost.
  
  
  METHODS
  A manual leather puncher with an inner diameter of 2mm was used to collect a tissue sample from the donor paraffin block. The conventional TMA method was adopted as a control group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Empty paraffin recipient blocks were prepared and a standard 2-mm crochet needle was used to create 24 equidistant holes in the recipient block. Tissue cores obtained from the donor blocks were transferred to the holes in the recipient blocks and routine histopathological techniques were then performed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this study we proposed a new approach to produce TMA recipient blocks as an alternative to the conventional TMA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.
authors.forename: João P A
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Sampaio
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.
authors.forename: José R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Cavalcante
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.
authors.forename: Francisco N N
authors.initials: FN
authors.lastname: Furtado
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Electronic address: robertocesar@ufc.br.
authors.forename: Roberto C P
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Lima-Júnior
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil; Department of Clinical Oncology, Haroldo Juaçaba Hospital, Cancer Institute of Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.
authors.forename: Ronaldo A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Ribeiro
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Electronic address: paulo.almeida@ufc.br.
authors.forename: Paulo R C
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Almeida
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009339:Needles; D016612:Paraffin Embedding / Q000379:methods; D046888:Tissue Array Analysis / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Diagnostic pathology; Immunohistochemistry; Pathology; Tissue microarray