Microdissection of cells with distinct histological features from tissue sections has become important because of the development of sensitive genetic techniques. This is of particular importance when analyzing genetic differences in tumor tissue compared to normal tissue. Failure to separate normal and tumor cell types can result in masking of results, false results, and discrepancies between repeat experiments. For example, use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify loss of heterozygosity or mutations in tumor cell DNA may be missed without use of microdissection, as the DNA from normal cell population may dilute out the DNA from the tumor cells.
