[Histonet] IHC controls for Cytology

[Rogerson Kemlo (ELHT) Pathology]

Aren't controls supposed to be treated exactly the same as the test? So
unless you treat them exactly the same you will never know if you have a
false negative and I'm not bright enough to know if you could have false
positives too.



Hi everyone,

We have very recently begun to destain pap stained smears as  well as
unstained  cytology smears,  and run IHC.


Because my Docs are happy with the results, I anticipate receiving more
of these types of smears to run.

I only  have FFPE tissue in stock to use as control, so I give them the
slides with the disclaimer that the control has been treated differently
than the smear.

This seems to be acceptable as long as they can detect some positive
stained cells (TTF, PanCk, WT-1  Mart-1 for example). But if the smear
is negative, how can I be sure it's a true negative?  My antibodies
aren't really titered for  smears....

I would appreciate some comments from anyone who is running a
standardized protocol for smears. Do you have a set of smears you can
use as controls?  I have access to our molecular lab and there is
potential to make my own cell cultured controls,  what do you think?

 

Many thanks,

Becky

 

Becky Orr CLA,HT(ASCP)

IHC Lead 

Evanston Northwestern Healthcare

847-570-2771

 

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