Happy Lab Week!! We worked on our H&E for almost two years. We were using Leica H&E products and after 2 years of struggling, adjusting and analyzing everything in our lab - we switched to the Richard-Allen Scientific products. We were seeing variability between days of staining, tissues right next to each other, nuclear paleness, eosin uniformity instead of differentiated, etc. Switching reagents helped us tremendously - we have more consistent higher quality stains on a daily basis and within tissues.
I you¹re struggling and have analyzed your processors, etc. to death - maybe try different reagents? (we even measured the tap water that we use on our stainer daily, the pH of reagents every other hour etc. and between 5 experienced histotechs, we couldn¹t figure it out) Good luck! :) Michael Ann Michael Ann Jones, HT (ASCP) Histology Manager Metropath 7444 W. Alaska Dr. #250 Lakewood, CO 80226 303.634.2511 mjo...@metropath.com On 4/21/15, 5:55 PM, "Sue" <suetp...@comcast.net> wrote: >OMG we are experiencing the same issue. At first it was just GI and now >we are seeing it on prostate. One pathologist said it looks like the >tissue has been cooked. The only issue is we can have two biopsies right >next to one another in the basket one looks good and one looks bad. My >director also thinks it is the processors. I had Thermo out and they >could find nothing. We changed out all the reagents and the biopsies were >fine than two days later we had some bad ones. I know in July Fisher had >a formalin recall associated to the mixture of buffer, water and >formalin. We thought that might be it but it is now almost a year later >and all the bad formalin should be gone. The histotechs say the tissue is >crunchy and they are right. I am running a test tonight of a small needle >biopsy that I made from a colon. I placed it is straight formaldehyde >overnight and am processing it on our biopsy cycle tonight. My director >also wanted us to only put three levels on our Thermo, but he wanted the >middle level to have empty baskets. I stopped that today because I think >the other issue is that the poor biopsies may be on the top level and as >the reagents are used the level changes, and also due to displacement >with the middle level being empty the reagent levels may not reach the >top. We just do not have the manpower to inspect every reagent every day, >we have 6 processor and it would take a tech all day. We actually take a >digital picture when they come out of the processor. I want to check my >problems cases tomorrow. We do not use sponges but the only other like >was the PA who was wrapping the blue paper very tight around the tissue. >I really do not think this is the issue though.. Any other insight would >be greatly appreciated. > >Susan T. Paturzo >TJUH >_______________________________________________ >Histonet mailing list >Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu >http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet