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Arey-Depena Pediatric Pathology Collection

The database quality assessments were made by Edward Beeman, M.D. (ret.). Dr. Beeman spent 2 years reviewing the slides and sections from all of the serially sectioned embryos in the Carnegie Collection. His quality assessments are based on several features.

• Histology is defined as the tissue itself, including its staining.
• Morphology is the actual shape of the embryo. This reflects both the natural body shape and the embryo's shape after preservation.
• Preparation notes are notes on the condition of the specimen as a whole. This is a typical object assessment; are slides or sections missing? are things broken? were there adverse reactions to stains or have stains faded? In assessing the quality of the preparation overall, all of these factors were weighed.

ex. An embryo with faded stain and one or two sections damaged but otherwise ok histology, and morphology would be rated good. An embryo with good staining and histology which had an entire slide missing would be rated fair or poor depending on the number of sections per slide.