[Histonet] Floater sources

[Michelle McCoy]

I was reading some of the old archived messages on floaters, and being
somewhat new to the field of histotechnology was curious about how floaters
can be attributed to a particular tech who performed work on the block. For
example, couldn't other sources of contamination be from the automatic
stainer, processor carryover (cassette not completely closed/or if closed,
friable tissue through the slats eg if sponge not used on larger specimen).
In some previous labs I've worked in- floaters were quickly attributed to
the cutter, embedder or grosser and might result in a "write up". If the
floater is seen in the block how can you differentiate if it came from the
grosser carryover/embedder carryover/processing carryover/unsigned
re-embedder/or even possibly even client carry over between patients or
different specimen types of the same patient.
And if it is not in the block --differentiating between the cutter/automatic
stainer (I've seen specks of tissue debris in automatic stainers/ sections
falling off the slides and into the reagents etc). Obviously all should be
done to minimize the factors, but I'm just not clear how a single source is
pinpointed and potentially blamed for the event (depending on the lab
policy). Thanks for any ideas on this.