[Histonet] Monitoring of IHC staining trends

[Troutman, Kenneth A]

Hello Histonet,

I have a question for the group at large.  How are labs monitoring drift in IHC staining over time?

Here's the scenario:  You do lot to lot testing and everything looks fine until one day your pathologists are telling you that the CAM5.2 is too dark.  Now, you've been looking at these slides every day for the last year and, sure enough, when you pull out a slide from last year's lot, it is significantly lighter.  So what do we do about it?  Do we revalidate the stain?  Does anyone have a mechanism to monitor this better?  What is the threshold for revalidation?

Feedback from techs as well as any pathologists would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Ashley Troutman BS, HT(ASCP) QIHC
Immunohistochemistry Supervisor
Vanderbilt University Histopathology
1301 Medical Center Drive TVC 4531
Nashville, TN  37232
ashley.troutman <@t> vanderbilt.edu<mailto:ashley.troutman <@t> vanderbilt.edu>