Assessment of Structure Distortion of Paraffin Wax Histology Section of Human Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaque Specimen

Paraffin wax histology analysis is treated as a golden standard to verify biological tissue microstructure. To generate a histology section, the tissue is subject to a sequence of dehydration processes to remove water from the tissue and replace it by wax to maintain the internal tissue structure. This process normally generates significant shrinkage in the specimen [1], adding uncertainties on quantifying region sizes based on histology sections, such as the area of lipid region, fibrous cap thickness (FCT) in human arterial plaque specimens.