Allison Scott wrote: Hello to all in histoland and Happy New Year. We are having issues with our H&E stain. The nuclei are staining very blue to purple and the mucin is staining blue to purple-blue. It is difficult to see the nuclear detail. The mucin is obscuring things. We have not changed our process for staining or processing. The funny thing is that it is only in the Biopsy cases, and it is every few slides. The surgical cases are all right. We checked the alcohol and xylene for water, and there is not any. My tech changed out the stain and we are staining a new batch of slides. If anyone has any idea what is wrong, any help would be greatly appreciated. I have gone over our processes and nothing has changed. The reagents are the same, the staining times are the same, and the processing times are the same. We are using the Shandon Gemini stainer and VIP processor.
Allison Scott HT(ASCP) Histology Supervisor LBJ Hospital Houston, Texas When you say it is every few slides, is there variation within multiple slides of one case? If all the slides (levels) of a case look the same, I would suspect a problem with that particular case, not the processing and not the staining. Are these all GI biopsies? Or do you see this in other needle biopsies, cervical biopsies and the like? GI biopsies tend to show hazy nuclei in epithelial cells commonly. There are several explanations and mostly are attributed to inadequate fixation. It could be you a client who has changed how they collect and fix the specimens. Are they letting them dry on a gauze before putting them in fixative? It could be you have something out of place on the tissue processor. It could be there is water under the tissue on the slide and it is subject to high heat (microwave or oven) and is cooking the cells prior to staining. As pointed out previously, it could be a problem with your hematoxylin pH. Good luck, and please let us know what the fix for this is when you get it figured out! Best wishes, Teri Johnson, HT(ASCP)QIHC Head, Histology and Electron Microscopy Stowers Institute for Medical Research Kansas City, MO _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet