Artifacts in Dermal Histopathology

Abstract

Inept handling and technical errors may produce misleading artificial changes in histologic sections at any stage of the biopsy process from the injection of local anesthetics and surgical removal of the specimen to fixation, cutting, and staining of the tissue. Some of the artifacts, which may lead to errors in diagnosis, are reviewed and their causes discussed. In some instances the artifacts were reproduced experimentally in specimens of normal skin.