Division of an iliac crest bone biopsy specimen to allow histomorphometry, immunohistochemical, molecular analysis and tissue banking: technical aspect and applications

The evaluation of bone complications in chronic kidney disease (CKD) often requires a bone biopsy, the analysis of which can refine the diagnosis of bone defects. Bone histomorphometry performed on sections of the iliac crest biopsy remains the reference procedure for the quantitative assessment of bone health in CKD patients, whereas immunohistochemistry and other molecular biology analyses are indispensable tools for studying the disrupted signaling pathways. Traditionally, the whole iliac crest biopsy was included in methyl-methacrylate (MMA) and was exclusively used for bone histomorphometry to describe static, dynamic, and structural parameters. Therefore, further molecular analysis of the bone tissue or the need for tissue banking would require a second biopsy to be made, because inclusion in MMA prevents the extraction of good-quality nucleic acids. In this work, we describe a simple approach to divide a single iliac crest bone biopsy into multiple parts. This allows for simultaneous assessments of histology, immunohistochemistry, biomolecular analysis, and tissue banking while preserving the same bone surface area for histomorphometry. © 2020 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research © 2020 The Authors. JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.