We have pretty much given up on finding certified techs willing to relocate (we
are in central California). We have mostly turned to trainees from within our
lab. We have actually found some very good techs that way. And then there are
always the other local labs that are willing to pay more
Hi Donna- I have been dealing with these same exact issues for 3 1/2 years now
so I think I have achieved "expert status" in dealing with this problem.
First, I'll give you my current protocol. When all things are working
smoothly, it produces a nice stain. But it is very frustrating when it
Hi Alison- many years ago I worked in a hospital. We had a very small Frozen
Section room in the OR. We did keep a 5 gallon carboy of formalin in there for
the convenience of the OR staff so they would have formalin available for their
specimens. We were told by someone in "authority" (sorry
Subscribe, please. Jeff Robinson, Sierra Pathology Lab, Clovis, CA.
This email and attachments may contain PHI that is privileged and confidential
and is not intended for any unauthorized person. If you, the reader, are not
the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination,
Hi Estela- I had the same problem with the Bond multicytokeratin. I currently
have 3 vials of the "old" one on backorder. I had to validate the new
"reformulation" as I have now run out of the old one (PA0909). Have your rep
send you the new one (PA0012). My rep sent me one for free. It se
Good Morning- can anyone give me a recommendation for a predilute PAX2
antibody? The one I was using has been discontinued and the replacement
product does not seem to perform very well. I will be using it on the Bond
III. Thanks in advance!
Jeff Robinson, Senior Histotechnologist, Sierra Pa
An additional word of caution about placing the EM Lab under ANY kind of
potential water leak. Tim Morken and I can attest to that! They installed a
new CT scanner in Radiology directly above the EM Lab. They broke some sort of
water pipe during the installation and it leaked so much that par
Hi Karen- I have also had problems getting tissue being stained for IHC
markers to adhere to the slide. The Potassium permanganate is really harse on
the tissue (if you can get the sections to stay on). Here is a trick I picked
up at an NSH lecture that I have used successfully several times.
Hi Melissa- when Tim Morken taught me to be an EM tech many moons ago we would
take a small dissecting microscope to the CT room. We would have the
radiologist place the first core on a sterile tongue depressor and then we
would check it in some saline on a dental wax square under the scope.
Hi Edison- I have had some headaches getting the SOX-10 to run in the past but
I now have all of the kinks ironed out and it works quite well. I had started
with the CellMarque mouse monoclonal of their RTU SOX-10. I had it working
well and then Leica recalled their red detection kits. I cou
Good Morning to all: I am having staining problems with my PAX-5 predilute
from CellMarque. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced a dramatic
dropoff in staining signal with this antibody after a few months. I have now
had this happen to me twice in the last 3 months. It stains very
Good Morning and Happy Holidays to all my fellow Histotechs- We are having
problems with our Ventana iScan digital imaging system. It breaks down
frequently and is causing extreme frustration for my pathologists. It has
gotten so bad we are trying to revive the old Ventana VIAS and use it ins
Hi Richard- I have been using the CellMarque IgG4 (MRQ-44 clone), mouse
monoclonal on the Leica Bond with success.
Jeff Robinson, Senior Histotechnologist, Sierra Pathology Lab, Clovis, CA.
-Original Message-
From: Cartun, Richard via Histonet [mailto:histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu]
Good Morning to all Histotechs- There have been many questions over the past
several months regarding poor retic staining on the Ventana Benchmark Special
Stainer. With the help of my histotech friends, I have now achieved successful
staining on both liver and bone marrow specimens utilizing t
We run IHC overnight on Friday night and IHC for the Saturday pathologist (on
call pathologist on a rotating basis with 17 total pathologists). We have
several pathologists who use Saturday as a catch up day and will come in to
read their pending IHC stains.
Jeff Robinson, Sierra Pathology Lab
I would love to have some talented staff with degrees! I have a staff of
around 22 people but I am currently the only HTL (I have a BA in Biology). I
do not have anyone else who is even eligible to sit for the HTL exam. It would
be very nice to have someone to share the load with!
A friend of
Hi Brian- we just buy controls for spirochetes. I did procure a control block
many years ago from someone working with pigs in a vet histology facility in
Missouri. It was quite good as I recall. That may be an option for you. We
run so few Steiners that it is not worthwhile for me to try a
Hi Julia- I have had a lot of experience trying to get a clean H. pylori. I
don't recall using the Ventana H. pylori but I was using the CellMarque H.
pylori for years. It would often have a lot of background as you describe. I
run Ventana Benchmarks (XT and Ultra) and a Leica Bond. The sli
We used an alternative tape (I believe it was from Mercedes) years ago and we
had some major issues with the tape detaching from the slide over time (in
storage) and taking the tissue on the slide with it. Perhaps the xylene being
dispensed needed to be adjusted or some other technical problem
Hi Sheila- I received a reply from BioCare so I am passing the information
along. Jeff.
-Original Message-
From: Dax Arguello [mailto:dargue...@biocare.net]
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2015 11:46 AM
To: Jeffrey Robinson
Subject: RE: [Histonet] Need Antibody
Jeff,
We do have the
Hi Sheila- I received some information from BioCare last year that they were
releasing a Bartonella (ASR) antibody. I just checked their website and I did
not see it listed but you might want to check with them (www.biocare.net).
Jeff Robinson, Senior Histotechnologist, Sierra Pathology Lab, Cl
My administration did do a salary survey a few years back but it turned out
only to ensure that we were within the "range" of the survey and not totally
below the curve. I was told "no adjustments" would be made based on this
salary survey. Salary ranges are a tightly held secret. I am the on
This certainly does not sound ideal to be moving tissue blocks around the
building. If this situation cannot be changed then perhaps a plastic bin with
a snap on lid could help minimize the risk of losing blocks during transport.
Jeff Robinson, Senior Histotechnologist, Sierra Pathology Lab, Cl
How about mushrooms? Has anyone had any success using mushrooms as a GMS
fungus control?
Jeff Robinson, Senior Histotechnologist, Sierra Pathology Lab, Clovis, CA
This email and attachments may contain PHI that is privileged and confidential
and is not intended for any unauthorized person. If
We have successfully used hamburger meat to make Gram controls. As far as GMS
controls go, we ran across a post from someone smearing cream cheese onto lung
tissue and letting it sit for a couple of days, fixed and processed it and were
able to demonstrate Aspergillus by GMS. My fungus control
Hi Beth Ann- I have also had problems with the Ventana CD10 after years of
using it successfully. I don't know if they changed something or what but it
just dropped off all of a sudden. I worked with one of their applications
specialists on it for some time (different lot #'s, protocol change
HI Renee- I had a major problem in the past with tissue staining for IHC
lifting off the slides no matter what I tried. It turned out that when we
precut our controls and put them in the oven and then used them later for the
patient tissue that the charge on the slide was altered. We currentl
Hi James- I just looked at my exhibit map from Austin and I believe the item
you seek (a plastic mailer that holds both block and slide) is sold by
Evergreen Scientific.
Jeff Robinson, Senior Histotechnologist, Sierra Pathology Lab, Clovis, CA.
-Original Message-
From: histonet-boun...
Hi Martha- I have had some limited success in rehabilitating underprocessed
tissue without reprocessing it in the tissue processor. If the tissue samples
are not too large you may be able to let them air dry for a period of time so
that they dry out. Make sure to face the blocks if you haven'
Yes, Blake, the Benchmark Special Stainer does a very poor job on retics,
especially bone marrow retics. We got one in December, 2013, and we do not use
it for retics (I still have an old Nexes). I had a Ventana guy here multiple
times as they thought it was a contamination problem. He decont
Good Morning- I have a Leica Multistainer that I currently use only as an
overflow H & E stainer. I had high hopes when we purchased the instrument that
it would prove to be very useful in automating some of our Special Stains. It
ended up just being easier to continue running those stains m
I worked in a hospital Histology Department years ago and the histotechs did
everything except orient the specimen and read the slide. The group I work for
now perform all of their own frozens. I still cut ORO controls on the cryostat
but that's about it. I do have some concerns that the youn
Yes, unfortunately I am very familiar with this problem. We have probably had
at least 10 clamp handles break off over the last 3 years. The problem is the
soft metal they are using for the clamp post. The post fits into a hole in the
bottom portion of the clamp and that is actually what pull
"
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. RE: rodent eye (Gowan,Christie C)
> 2. Cracking paraffin blocks (Wheelock, Timothy R.)
> 3. RE: Cheap Disposable Blades for Facing In (Bea DeBrosse-Serra)
> 4. Re: Cracking paraffin blocks (Hans B Snyder)
> 5. Amyloid by Cong
Regarding the paraffin/plastic stratification: we used to get the reddish
"paraffin dust bunnies" in the paraffin pots apparently from the separation and
stratification of the paraffin and the plasticizers. I bought a big wood
paddle from the industrial kitchen supply store (about $12) and we
Greetings to all Histotechs- Here's an amyloid question for the braintrust.
We are cutting our slides and controls at 9 and staining in Congo Red for 1
hour. The control stains fine but the patient tissue is staining negative even
on cases that the pathologist assures us should be positive fo
We use empty pipette tip boxes. They are the perfect size and fit right under
the edge and we just toss them when them get full.
Jeff Robinson, HT, HTL, Senior Histotechnologist, Sierra Pathology Lab, Clovis,
CA.
-Original Message-
From: histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
[mail
I have also noticed a big difference in the brand of cassette being used. The
old Tissue-Tek style with the large holes do not seem to bleed or leak much at
all but the General Data ones we use "bleed" a lot. I have tried different
methods with the General Data type but have yet to come up wit
t;Re:
Contents of Histonet digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. RE: Recycling alcohol (Marcum, Pamela A)
2. Decon HydeAway (Vickroy, James)
3. RE: specials stainers (Jeffrey Robinson)
4. Re: Recycling alcohol (Esther C Peters)
5. FW: Iron control tissue or blocks (Montana, Maria
I have the Leica multistainer. We use it for H & E staining only. When we
attempted to set it up for Special Stains, all of the silver stains had to be
made up either each run or each day. Too much hassle.
Jeff Robinson, HT, HTL
Sierra Pathology Lab, Clovis, CA
jrobin...@pathology-associates.
I checked with NSH and they say that their tissue exchange bank has been
discontinued. I have a lot of lung tissue containing Coccidiodes organisms
(Valley Fever). I would like to trade for some tissue containing fungus. Is
there another tissue exchange network out there? Is anyone intereste
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