Cindi Robinson replied to me offline, saying some of the things Vinnie della Speranza also said. I wasn't aware that hydrochloric acid decalcification (I assume that regular brand-name Decal is HCl) with prompt timing degraded IHC - something I guess that every lab has to determine for themselves. Is formic acid the decalcifier of choice for marrow cores? (One more reason to be using properly identified chemicals, and not secret proprietary mixtures, as John Kiernan has so often stressed on this list.)
Repeating what I said before, I think that communication between histotechnologists and pathologists, and between pathologists and oncologists, is essential here. How often is overnight turnaround critical to patient care? Can the oncologists do biopsies earlier in the day when they need overnight turnaround? Actually, this isn't the worst communication problem I've seen among these groups of people. Even more serious is getting co-operation among all parties in getting marrow smears done right. In many services I've worked in, it's almost unheard of to get a marrow specimen with properly prepared and adequately stained smears. The procedure requires constant attention to detail, and frequent training of new workers by experienced technologists and - dare I say it? - pathologists. Bob Richmond Samurai Pathologist Knoxville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet