Identification of type-II alveolocytes in cryostatic sections of human lungs

The tannic acid-polychromic stain method (Mason et al., 1985) designed for the identification of the cultured alveolar type II cells has been adapted to cryostat sections of human lungs. Both biopsy and autopsy specimens obtained within one hour post mortem could be effectively processed with this method to visualize at the light microscope level the lamellar bodies, i.e. characteristic intracellular inclusions of alveolar type II cells.