Fetal Soft Tissue Examinations by Microdissection

This chapter describes methods for the examination of fetal abdominal and thoracic soft tissues by microdissection on either fresh (non-rodent) or fixed (rodent) specimens in order to detect structural abnormalities. With hundreds of fetuses examined for each species (rodent and non-rodent) in regulatory reproductive toxicity assessments (ICH, http://www.ich.org/fileadmin/Public_Web_Site/ICH_Products/Guidelines/Multidisciplinary/M3_R2/Step4/M3_R2__Guideline.pdf, 2009; ICH, http://www.ich.org/fileadmin/Public_Web_Site/ICH_Products/Guidelines/Safety/S5_R2/Step4/S5_R2__Guideline.pdf, 2005), microdissection techniques allow a thorough and relatively rapid examination of fetuses for soft tissue abnormalities.