Before you freeze a muscle specimen, you coat it thinly with talc,
pick it up with tweezers, and bob it up and down about ten times in
the freezing liquid (not directly in liquid nitrogen), then mount it
in OCT or other freeze-mount medium.
Correctly done, this will largely avoid bubble artifact.
Bone marrow biopsy specimens can be decalcified with a variety of
commercial and home-brewed decalcifiers. Always you have to make sure
you don't leave the specimen in the decalcifier for too long.
All decalcifiers leach out iron (hemosiderin). The iron stain should
be done on the undecalcified cl
I use 5% formic acid, you can make it or purchase Immunocal from Decal
Chemicals, it is slower than the rapid decal solutions but much better for
IHC and FE (although we used to have to do Fe stains on the smears or clot
because besides the decal, iron can be washed out in tissue processing).
Rega
Here's an excellent reference - Ross JS: "Saving Lives with Accurate HER2
Testing" Am J Clin Pathol 2010;134:183-184.
I quote, "A number of experts in the field have now agreed that a laboratory
performing HER2 testing in the US patient population should have a HER2+ rate
of approximately "16
While I was looking up the QIHC pass rates, I thought I'd let everyone know the
2010 HT and HTL pass rates.
http://www.ascp.org/MainMenu/programdirectors/Laboratoryprograms/ExaminationStatistics.aspx
(if you want to look up other years)
HT HISTOLOGIC TECHNICIAN:
758 total took, 522 passed = 69%
N
I thought I would look up the stats for the QIHC on the ASCP webpage
http://www.ascp.org/PDF/ExamStat.aspx
In 2010, 88 people took the exam, with 80 passing, or 91%.
I then looked over all the stats from 2005-2010 (in 2005, the exam became a
50 multiple choice question exam. Previous, it had be
