Postmortem diagnostics of renal diseases from semithin sections.

For the light microscopic postmortem study of mostly glomerular renal diseases, in addition to the paraffin technique, 0.5 mu thick (semithin) sections from material fixed in buffered formaldehyde and embedded in methacrylate or Durcupan ACM were used. The method allows for eventual electron microscopic examinations. The semithin sections were stained with methylene blue combined with basic fuchsin, as well as with periodic acid-silver methamine. The method is not a substitution, but the supplementation of the paraffin technique and is suited for the clarification of numerous fine details: in some cases the exact diagnosis was made in this way.