[Histonet] Ventana vs Dako

[Andrea C. Bilger]

I ave been reading with interest the mailings about the 2 top IP stainers.  We have 2 Ventana XT's in our lab.  Have found them very expensive to operate as everyone else has.  The Pathologists wanted us to continue with Ventana due to only having one knowlegable IP tech and wanting consistancy.  You have to have some knowlege of IP's even to operate the Ventana machines.  Some reps make it sound goof proof but it isn't.  We have had trouble with consistancy in a couple of detection kits.  One was stronger and all our stains were too hot.  Adjusted the stains and the next kit was back to the weaker strength.  Had to adjust all the stains back again.  What a pain in the ......

Has anyone had any experience with another IP stainer from Vision Biosystems?  I looked at one at a National Histo convention and it sounded like a cross between the Dako and the Ventana.  I think it was more of an open system but used bar codes on the slides.  Antigen retrieval was done on the stainer. Reagents were supposed to be cheaper and not proprietary.  It had a feature where you could start a stat stain after the run was started.  I would be interested to hear anyones experience with this machine.

Andrea