[Histonet] Immuno slide problem

[Anissa Choi]

We run our immuno on Ventana Nexus IHC. We place a positive control section 
on every slide together with patient 's tissue section.  We use charged 
slides with a red edge square which is right
next to the barcode label . The square is labelled "control" and that is 
where we place the positive
control section. We had a case of a punch skin bx on which the pathologist 
requested LCA, L26
and CD3. Because of the small size of specimen, 2 sections were picked up on 
each slide. There
was no problem with LCA, the positive control and the 2 skin sections 
stained strongly .  For L26,
the control worked but only 1 skin section ,which was at the bottom end of 
the slide, was immunostained strongly  for L26.  The other skin section in 
the middle  and lying next to the positive
control  was completely negative for L26 but nuclei were  stained with 
hematoxylin. The
same staining pattern was seen in CD3-----the skin section in the middle did 
not get stained while
the control and the other section worked just fine.
Ventana suggested us to switch to other kind of slides, saying some stuff 
from the red edge may get onto the slides and cause staining problem. We 
requested a maintenance check on the stainer and
Venatana could not find anything wrong with the machine. We recut the 
section using same kind  of slides and repeated L26 and CD3. We got normal 
result with both skin sections stained . We also
re-run the origional problem slides on Ventana but they turned out the same, 
the skin section in
the middle still not stained.

I am convinced  that there is something on the slides that is blocking  the 
staining but I am puzzled
by the fact that the nuclei are stained . I would like to get some comments 
or opinions on this. I also
hope to hear from people using the same type of slides to see if they have 
any staining problems.

Thanks in advance for your inputs.


Anissa Choi

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