Microwave tissue heating

Shi SR, Key ME, Kalra KL. Antigen retrieval in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues an enhancement method for immunohistochemical staining based on microwave oven heating of tissue sections. J. Histochem. Cytochem. 1991 39 741-748. 

Recently, microwave fixation (21) has been utilized as an alternative to chemical fixation as another effort to circumvent artefacts induced by chemical fixation. During microwave fixation, heat is delivered in a controlled manner uniformly throughout the tissue, i.e., thin slices. The penetration of microwaves into the tissue is limited to approx 2 cm from the surface. 

Hopwood D, Yeaman G, Milne G. 1988. Differentiating the effects of microwave and heat on tissue proteins and their cross linking by formaldehyde. Histochem J 1988 20, 341-346. 

Munakata, S. and Hendricks, J. B. (1993) Effect of fixation time and microwave oven heating time on retrieval of the Ki-67 antigen from paraffin-embedded tissue. J. Histochem. Cytochem. 41, 1241-1246. 

Horton, A. J. (1993) Microwave oven heating for antigen unmasking in routinely processed tissue sections. J Pathol. 171,79- 0. 

Schwan was one of the founders of biomedical engineering as a new discipline. Before World War II, in the laboratory of Rajewski at the Frankfurter Institut fiir Biophysik, he had started with some of the most important topics of the field on low-frequency blood and blood serum conductivity, counting of blood cells, selective heating and body tissue properties in the ultra-high-frequency range, electromagnetic hazards and safety standards for microwaves, tissue relaxation, and electrode polarization. He also worked with the acoustic and ultrasonic properties of tissue. In 1950, he revealed for the first time the frequency dependence of muscle... 

Because microwaves can heat substances uniformly to their maximum depth of penetration, an individual who is irradiated could sustain severe deep tissue damage. The consequences of microwave injury are quite varied. The list below details some of the effects of exposure to microwaves. 

Microwaves have successfully been used for rewarming of blood for medical appHcations (157). Another successful appHcation, not commetciali2ed as of this writing, is the use of microwave heating for rapid tissue fixation (158,159). This procedure appears to reduce the time for tissue sample analysis... 

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