Correlation between histologic and radiographic reconstruction of intracochlear electrode position in human temporal bones

In our laboratory, human temporal bone specimens from patients who in life have undergone cochlear implantation are routinely processed with the implant in situ, embedded in Araldite, sectioned at 20 µm and serially photographed during cutting, stained with toluidine blue and mounted on glass slides. From the images, two-dimensional and three-dimensional reconstructions can be made and a very accurate implant insertion depth can be calculated from the three-dimensional reconstructions. However, this method precludes subsequent special stains and further molecular investigations of the tissue including proteomics and immunostaining, which is now possible with celloidin-embedded tissue. In this study, we correlated measurement of the implant array insertion depth calculated from histologic three-dimensional reconstruction with that measured from three-dimensional radiologic multiplanar reconstruction. Four human temporal bones with cochlear implants underwent postfixation preprocessing CT imaging with a Siemens Somatom Sensation Scanner. The CT scans from these four bones were downloaded into the Voxar software application, reformatted using the multiplanar reconstruction tool, viewed in three dimensions and measurements of intracochlear insertion lengths of the implants were obtained. The bones were processed routinely for in situ Araldite embedding, serial images were made of the block during sectioning, postprocessed using PV-Wave® software, aligned with Amira® software, and used to create histologic three-dimensional reconstructions. From these three-dimensional reconstructions, the insertion depth of the electrode array was mathematically calculated. The range of insertion depths was 15.9 mm (case 1) to 26.6 mm (case 4). The two methods, radiographic multiplanar reconstruction and three-dimensional reconstruction, differed by 0.4-0.9%. This provides confidence that important localization information about the electrode in situ can be gleaned from CT scans, thereby allowing us to extract the implants prior to processing for celloidin embedment and allow further techniques such as special stains and immunostaining to be accomplished in order to evaluate molecular mechanisms involved in cochlear implantation.

High quality DNA obtained with an automated DNA extraction method with 70+ year old formalin-fixed celloidin-embedded (FFCE) blocks from the indiana medical history museum

DNA and RNA have been used as markers of tissue quality and integrity throughout the last few decades. In this research study, genomic quality DNA of kidney, liver, heart, lung, spleen, and brain were analyzed in tissues from post-mortem patients and surgical cancer cases spanning the past century. DNA extraction was performed on over 180 samples from: 70+ year old formalin-fixed celloidin-embedded (FFCE) tissues, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples from surgical cases and post-mortem cases from the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's, tissues fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin/stored in 70% ethanol from the 1990's, 70+ year old tissues fixed in unbuffered formalin of various concentrations, and fresh tissue as a control. To extract DNA from FFCE samples and ethanol-soaked samples, a modified standard operating procedure was used in which all tissues were homogenized, digested with a proteinase K solution for a long period of time (24-48 hours), and DNA was extracted using the Autogen Flexstar automated extraction machine. To extract DNA from FFPE, all tissues were soaked in xylene to remove the paraffin from the tissue prior to digestion, and FFPE tissues were not homogenized. The results were as follows: celloidin-embedded and paraffin-embedded tissues yielded the highest DNA concentration and greatest DNA quality, while the formalin in various concentrations, and long term formalin/ethanol-stored tissue yielded both the lowest DNA concentration and quality of the tissues tested. The average DNA yield for the various fixatives was: 367.77 μg/ mL FFCE, 590.7 μg/mL FFPE, 53.74 μg/mL formalin-fixed/70% ethanol-stored and 33.2 μg/mL unbuffered formalin tissues. The average OD readings for FFCE, FFPE, formalin-fixed/70% ethanol-stored tissues, and tissues fixed in unbuffered formalin were 1.86, 1.87, 1.43, and 1.48 respectively. The results show that usable DNA can be extracted from tissue fixed in formalin and embedded in celloidin or paraffin from the early 1900's to present, and may be amplified through PCR and used for clinical and experimental studies.