**Introduction**

**Chapter 1**

**Provisional chapter**

**Introductory Chapter: Histological Microtechniques**

**1.1. Background and overall preparation of tissues for microscopic examination**

Histology is the branch of anatomy that focuses on the study of tissues of animals and plants. The term tissue refers typically to a collection of cells. In humans, organs comprise two or more tissue types, including epithelial, connective tissue, nervous, and muscular. The word "histology" stems from the Greek word "histos," meaning web or tissue, and "logia," meaning branch of learning. In brief, histological processing involves obtaining fresh tissue, preserving it (i.e., fixing it) in order to allow it to remain in as life-like a state as possible, cutting it into very thin sections (3–8 microns), mounting it on glass microscopic slides, and then staining the sections so that they can be observed under a microscope to identify different

For tissue removal, it is necessary to gather first the informed consent of the patient, as tissue taken from a live individual for diagnosis or treatment requires his/her consent. In other words, the patient must know at the time he/she consents, the purpose of tissue removal (e.g., diagnosis, research purposes, etc.) [1]. Similarly, harvesting tissue from an animal requires approval of the procedure by the institutional review board (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, IACUC) [2, 3]. An important first step in the histological process is tissue acquisition. This step can be achieved by means of traditional tissue dissection or endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided fine needle aspiration [4]. If the former dissection

**Introductory Chapter: Histological Microtechniques**

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.82017

Vonnie D.C. Shields and Thomas Heinbockel

Vonnie D.C. Shields and Thomas Heinbockel

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82017

histological components within the tissue.

**1. Introduction**

**2. Techniques**

**2.1. Preparing the tissue**

#### **Introductory Chapter: Histological Microtechniques Introductory Chapter: Histological Microtechniques**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.82017

Vonnie D.C. Shields and Thomas Heinbockel Vonnie D.C. Shields and Thomas Heinbockel

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82017

**1. Introduction**

#### **1.1. Background and overall preparation of tissues for microscopic examination**

Histology is the branch of anatomy that focuses on the study of tissues of animals and plants. The term tissue refers typically to a collection of cells. In humans, organs comprise two or more tissue types, including epithelial, connective tissue, nervous, and muscular. The word "histology" stems from the Greek word "histos," meaning web or tissue, and "logia," meaning branch of learning. In brief, histological processing involves obtaining fresh tissue, preserving it (i.e., fixing it) in order to allow it to remain in as life-like a state as possible, cutting it into very thin sections (3–8 microns), mounting it on glass microscopic slides, and then staining the sections so that they can be observed under a microscope to identify different histological components within the tissue.
