Optimizing histopathological evaluation of endoscopic mucosal resection specimens of Barrett's esophagus-related neoplasia: a randomized study of 3 specimen handling methods.

Both pinning on paraffin and direct fixation in formalin result in optimal histopathological evaluation scores in a high proportion of specimens, while the cassette technique performs significantly worse and its use in clinical daily practice should be discouraged. Given the significantly shorter handling time, direct fixation in formalin appears to be the preferred method over pinning on paraffin. However, the latter needs to be confirmed in larger studies with inclusion of all EMR specimens.