Tissue handling and specimen preparation in surgical pathology: issues concerning the recovery of nucleic acids from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue.

Context: Expression profiling by microarrays and real-time polymerase chain reaction-based assays is a powerful tool for classification and prognostication of disease; however, it remains a research tool, largely reliant on frozen tissue. Limiting the utility of expression profiling is the isolation of quality nucleic acids from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue. The collection, handling, and processing of tissue directly impacts the biomolecules that can be recovered from it.