[Histonet] Quality and Turn around, and what about floaters?

[Joe Nocito]

we did the same thing. We put GI bxs on one program, prostates on another, 
skins on another and everything else goes on one long processing program. We 
have staining program for prostate bxs and everything else gets the routine 
program.
    I'm curious as to which company this is.

Joe
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Histopatty <@t> aol.com>
To: <histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2007 9:23 AM
Subject: [Histonet] Quality and Turn around, and what about floaters?


>I recently visited a certain company that claimed to have a solution for
> consistency in quality stain and an answer to the problem of carry over. 
> The
> stainer stained slides individually thus eliminating carry over in the 
> stain
> solution and insuring high quality staining for each slide since the 
> solution was
> fresh each time.  We did a comparison of our facility stained slides with
> recuts of the same slides stained on their system.  There was a marked 
> difference
> in the quality of the biopsies stained, (more subcellular details, such as
> villi, and brush boarders are visible) but on the larger specimens the 
> difference
> was not so evident.  I applaud the innovation of this company to bring H&E
> staining up to higher standards.  However this still leaves me wondering 
> if there
> is a way to individualize/optimize processing of specimens.  Obviously the
> biopsies are easier to optimize because of their smaller size.  But when 
> it
> comes to processing larger specimens the optimization is lost due to many 
> factors:
> type of tissue (fat, smooth muscle, etc.), thickness variations, and last 
> but
> not least fixation time.  In our facility we train resident pathologist, 
> so
> that may be part of the problem, as well as the turn around time issues 
> due to
> regulating organization and customer demands.  I am wondering what other
> facilities do if anything to optimize specimen processing (which seems 
> essential)
> in order to have consistency in the quality of all slides with a turn 
> around
> time that is acceptable to all concerned.    We currently have 3 routine
> processing schedules, one for biopies, routine specimens and larger fatty 
> specimens.
> We utilize 5 processors with staggered starting times.  Any insight or
> suggestion will be appreciated.
>
> Patty E.
> OUMC
>
>
>
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