GB2112755A - Tissue storage and collection assembly - Google Patents

Abstract

A tray (1) for the collection and storage of tissue in autopsy has a plurality of wells (5,6,7) and a translucent or transparent base together with a water-tight lid. A template is provided for location beneath the base of the tray and is adapted to co-operate with the tray for archiving the wells. The template bears markings which correspond to the arrangement of the wells in the tray and are visible through the base of the tray. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Tissue storage and collection assembly The present invention relates to an assembly for the collection and storage of the tissues of organisms, and to a method of collecting such tissues for storage.

In the conduct of toxicity tests and on a very wide number of other occasions, it is necessary to conduct post mortem examinations of very large numbers of rats, mice and other small animals as well as dogs, monkeys, and some larger animals. When an animal is subject to post mortem examination, a large number of tissues is taken for processing and subsequent microscopic examination.

The practice at present is to place fragments of the tissues collected at autopsy all together in a bottle of fixative (a fixative being a chemical such as formalin) which prevents the decay of the tissues. After several days in the fixative, the tissues have to be sorted out. However, one of the properties of the fixative is so to alter the appearance of the tissues so as to make it tedious and difficult, even for an experienced technician, to distinguish one tissue from another, with the result that sometimes some tissues are completely overlooked and other tissues are processed under the wrong names. Furthermore, it is difficult to be sure by looking into a bottle containing a number of tissues, that the tissues that should have been taken have in fact been taken from the animal before its carcass is finally destroyed.

These difficulties have assumed particular importance in recent years due to the introduction of Codes of Practice by various regulatory agencies which lay great stress upon taking all the designated tissues from each animal and ensuring that no confusion between tissues occurs in processing and that all the tissues go through all the processes correctly to the stage of microscopic examination.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to overcome these problems.

According to the present invention there is provided an assembly for the collection and storage of the tissues of organisms which comprises a tray provided with a plurality of wells and having a translucent or transparent base, a template for location beneath said base and adapted to cooperate with the tray for archiving the wells, said template bearing markings which correspond to the arrangement of the wells in the tray and are visible through the base of the tray, and a lid which is adapted to fit on the tray so as to form a water-tight seal.

In one embodiment, the tissue tray is made of a polymeric material which is resistant to the all commonly used fixatives although any other fixative resistant material may be used. The tray may be of any suitable shape, but is conveniently rectangular in shape, or more particularly, generally rectangular, having two corners cut away.

The tray contains a series of wells of suitable size or preferably a variety of sizes and shapes, for example, thirty two in number, and of a sufficient capacity to contain sufficient fixative to deal with the tissues placed in the well. The wells may vary in size appropriatelyto the size of the organ or tissue that they are expected to contain. For example, several of the wells are preferably bisected to facilitate the storage of paired organs such as the left and right kidney and adrenals. These wells may be arranged in a logical order coinciding with the order in which tissues are taken at autopsy.According to a particular aspect of the invention each well is stamped in the process of manufacture of the trays, with the names of the tissues or with a code identifying the tissues that it is to contain and optionally, the number of pieces of tissues that should be taken from that organ.

Slots are preferably provided in the dividing walls between wells to facilitate equilibration of liquid levels. One or more wells may be designed to be individually sealed with one or more covers and to contain a different liquid from the other wells. In this case, the dividing walls or the well are not provided with slots. Individual covers of the type which pressfit into a well to provide a liquid-tight seal are preferred. The individual cover or covers are preferably recessed within the well to allow fitting of the lid over the entire tray as described hereinafter. The individual covers preferably have a projecting flange to facilitate removal of the cover as desired.

The tray is preferably provided on its base with a number of short legs which also facilitate convenient and reliable stacking of two or more of the trays in a close arrangement one on top of the other. The trays may be stacked either with or without the lids in position.

The tissue-collection assembly, according to the invention, also comprises a close-fitting lid, preferably provided with a peripheral flange providing a channel adapted to receive a lip on the tray to form the water-tight seal. At least a portion of the upper surface of the lid is recessed to receive the legs on the base of another tray to allow sure stacking of sealed units.

The template made of, for example, card, preferably bears markings which map the layout of the wells in the tray, each well mapped also being numbered or having the name of the tissue to be collected in that well. The template may be marked by any convenient means for example, by a series of crosses using a dark marker to indicate those tissue specimens which are to be taken for a particular study and their corresponding disposition in the tray. The template may also incorporate the project number and other key information. The template is arranged on a suitable mounting, e.g. bench top or on the top of an empty tray or lid. The fixative-filled tray is placed on top of the template to allow rapid visual assessment of progress or completion of tissue collection.

Identification labels may be affixed to a side panel of the tray to facilitate subsequent recognition.

According to another embodiment, the assembly also comprises a storage/archive box for stacked tissue trays. In this case, the box holds ten trays in two stacks of five and has vertical slots to allow the identification labels of the invididual trays to be observed.

According to a further aspect of the of the present invention there is also provided a method of collecting the tissues of organisms for storage, the method comprising filling all or a number of a plurality of wells of a tray with an appropriate tissue preserving liquid; marking a template which bears marking corresponding to the arrangements of said wells so as to indicate those wells which are to receive a specific tissue sample, arranging said tray which has a translucent or transparent base, on said template so that the applied markings are visible through said base in their appropriate location, and placing the corresponding tissue samples in the pre-determined wells in accordance with the markings applied to the template.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is an elevation of a tray of this embodiment; Figure 2 is an elevation of a lid adapted to fit on to the tray shown in Figure 1; Figure 3 is an elevation of the base of the tray shown in Figure 1, and Figure 4 shows a template of the embodiment.

A substantially rectangular tray 1 which has two cut-away corners 2 is shown in Figure 1. The tray is bounded by side walls 3 having an upper lip 4 and comprises a plurality of wells 5 of various sizes and shapes intended to receive organ tissues. In this embodiment there are 32 wells with capacities varying from 10 to 100 ml, and several of the wells are bisected to facilitate the storage of paired organs e.g. left and right kidneys and adrenals. Each well is stamped with the name or an identifying code of the tissue it is designed to accommodate. A large well 6 is provided at one end of the tray which may be used for tissues or may act as a reservoir for the fixative.

One well 7 disposed in a corner of the tray is provided with an individual cover 8 which press-fits in the well and has a protruding tab 9 to facilitate removal of the temporary cover. The well 7 is adapted to store tissues which require a different fixation fluid from that used in the main body of the tray e.g., an eye in Davidson's fluid.

At least one internal wall of each well other than wells 6 and 7, is provided with a slot 3a which extends part way down the wall from the top of the well. These slots 3a provide for equilibration of the liquid levels in the wells.

Recesses 10 provided under the cut away corners 2 ease handling of the tray which can be stacked by means of short legs 18 (Figure 3) located in the base of the tray.

The number and variety of well sizes of this embodiment facilitates the discrete fixation and absolute identification of all routine rodent tissues.

A lid 15 is shown in Figure 2. This lid 15 has a peripheral flange 16 which defines a channel and is adapted to fit exactly over the lip 4 of the tray 1 to provide a liquid-tight seal. The lid 15 is recessed to receive the legs 18 to facilitate stacking of sealed trays.

Atemplate 17 bearing the outline of the layout of the wells 5,6,7 is shown in Figure 4. Each well shown on the template is numbered to predetermined code for indicating specific tissue types.

The template 17 and internal dimensions of the tray 1 are substantially the same as to allow the template to be placed in an empty tray 1 or a lid 15 on which the tray to be filled may be stacked. This provides a convenient method of securing the template in position beneath the tray 1.

A procedure employing the above described embodiment will now be outlined in the following example.

The tray 1 is filled with a 10% buffered formalin with the exception of well 7 which is filled with Davidson's fluid for preserving eyes. An adhesive label bearing the project number, animal number, sex, group and date of autopsy is firmly attached to the front panel of the tray. The template 17 is marked with the study number, data and other relevant details and marked with dark coloured crosses in the sections corresponding to the well into which specific named tissues have to be collected. The template 17 is then located in position beneath the tray 1.

At autopsy, as each organ or tissue is removed from the animal, it is immediately placed in its own numbered well according to the template 17 which indicates the position of each tissue required according to a pre-determined code.

There may be occasions when some of the organs taken at autopsy are required to be weighed. If this is the case, the weight of the organ is recorded before it is placed in the tray.

When the autopsy is complete a check is made to ensure that each well contains the required tissue.

If eyes have been taken the eye well lid 8 is applied to well 7 ensure segregation of Davidson's fluid. The lid 15 is then firmly fitted to the tray and the tray stacked with the previously filled trays.

Afterthe required period of fixation the tissues in the tray 1 are taken from each well in turn and trimmed. Absolute identification of tissues is made possible by referring to the template 17 which was used for autopsy. Resulting fragments of each tissue after trimming are replaced in their original well to enable further sampling to be undertaken at a later date if required.

When all tissue sampling is complete the trays are placed in purpose made storage/archive boxes and stored until required again.

Embodiments of the tissue collection and storage assembly according to the invention present a number of advantages: a. It will be immediately clear to an autopsy technician and supervisor whether all the tissues required have been collected, it being necessary only to look in the tray to see if every well contains the appropriate number of pieces of tissue corresponding to the instructions marked on the template.

b. The technician who subsequently trims the tissue prior to further processing will be in no doubt as to the identity of each tissue specimen which can appear confusingly similar after fixation and often producing errors using the conventional arrangements.

c. When all the tissues have been taken for histology, the present arrangements require that the tissues be stored for as long as possible and certainly for several years. These tissue trays with tightly fitting lids can conveniently be stored in their archive boxes needing no further containment, thereby saving time and materials. By stacking large numbers of trays, projects can be stored in the minimum space.

d. Occasionally studies have to be reassessed after archiving and this system allows individual tissues to be identified easily by referring to the protocol-specific template.

e. The tissue trays themselves and their lids can, with modern plastics technology, be made very economically and therefore in effect be disposable as required by their use for archiving the material.

Claims (19)

1. An assembly for the collection and storage of the tissues of organisms which comprises a tray provided with a plurality of wells and having a translucent or transparent base, a template for location beneath said base and adapted to cooperate with the tray for archiving the wells, said template bearing markings which correspond to the arrangement of the wells in the tray and are visible through the base of the tray, and a lid which is adapted to fit on the tray so as to form a water-tight seal.

2. An assembly according to claim 1 wherein said template is removably mounted to said lid.

3. An assembly according to claim 1 or 2 wherein the top of said lid is recessed to receive said template.

4. An assembly according to claim 1,2 or 3 comprising a plurality of said trays.

5. An assembly according to claim 4 further comprising a plurality of said templates equal in number to said plurality of trays.

6. An assembly according to claim 4 or 5 comprising a plurality of lids each adapted to fit a respective one of said trays so as to form a water-tight seal.

7. An assembly according to any preceding claim wherein three or more legs are provided on the base of the or each tray so as to facilitate stacking of such trays one on top of the other.

8. An assembly according to claim 7 wherein at least a portion of the or each lid is recessed so as to receive said legs.

9. An assembly according to any preceding claims wherein each well of the or each tray bears markings identifying the tissue/organ that that well is to contain.

10. An assembly according to claim 9 wherein at least one well of the or each tray bears markings indicating the number of pieces of tissue to be taken from a specified organ.

11. An assembly according to any preceding claim wherein each well of the or each tray is adapted to the size of an organ or tissue assigned thereto and is of a capacity to contain sufficient fixative for that organ or tissue.

12. An assembly according to claim 9, wherein the wells of the tray are arranged in an order coinciding with that in which tissues are taken at autopsy.

13. An assembly according to any preceding claim wherein at least one well of the tray is bisected to facilitate the storage of paired organs.

14. An assembly according to any preceding claim wherein slots are provided in one or more dividing walls between wells to facilitate equilibration of liquid levels.

15. An assembly according to any preceding claim wherein one well or a group of wells of the or each tray is adapted to be invididually sealed by means of a cover member.

16. An assembly according to claim 15 further comprising said cover member.

17. An assembly for the collection and storage of the tissues or organisms substantially as herein described with reference to the accompany drawings.

18. A method of collecting the tissues of organisms for storage, the method comprising filling all or a number of a plurality of wells of a tray with an appropriate tissue preserving liquid; marking a template which bears markings corresponding to the arrangement of said wells so as to indicate those wells which are to receive a specific tissue sample, arranging said tray which has a translucent or transparent base, on said template so that the applied markings are visible through said base in their appropriate location, and placing the corresponding tissue samples in the pre-determined wells in accordance with the markings applied to the template.

19. A method of collecting the tissues of organisms for storage, substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.