I would suggest you send your recycled xylene for testing; the manufacturer of your recycler should be able to recommend several. I suspect water in the xylene (I have seen it cause this issue on the processor) or inadequate drying of the slides before deparaffinization. Any water droplets left on the slide will not be removed by the xylene on the stainer leaving tiny round areas in the tissue that still have paraffin in them. The hematoxylin and eosin will not fully stain these areas, but the xylene at the end of the H&E stain will remove this residual wax.
Doug Showers, MS, HT Histology Manager ProPath 8267 Elmbrook Dr. Suite 100 Dallas, TX 75247 214-237-1680 214-422-3083 Mobile 214-237-1706 FAX To learn more about ProPath, please visit http://www.ProPathLab.com -----Original Message----- From: histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu [mailto:histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Jason McGough Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 11:27 AM To: histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu Subject: [Histonet] Staining vs. paraffin wax problems We are experiencing difficulties with our H&E staining and other Special Stains. After the slides are stained the edges of the tissue look fragmented/chattered. Our pathologists also thought the sections looked like they might be too thick but we checked all of our microtomes for thickness settings and all are set at 4 micrometers. There seems to be several blotches of light staining throughout the tissue. This seems to be only on our small biopsies. We use McCormick Paraplast Extra for paraffin wax. Another bit information is that we recycle all of our xylene. Is this a deparaffinization, processing, or a staining issue? Any help is appreciated. Jason McGough HT(ASCP) Account Representative - Anatomic Pathology Clinical Laboratory of the Black Hills 2805 5th Street Suite 210 Rapid City, SD 57701 605-343-2267 Ext 127 605-718-3779 (Fax) jmcgo...@clinlab.com _______________________________________________ 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