[Histonet] How to troubleshoot a cytology slide with dehydration problems

[Valerie R.]

I am an HTL but I have to stain pap smears. In the Papanicalou procedure for
fine needle aspirations I have to stain the slides in sodium chloride first
for 25 seconds in total (15 seconds in one container and 10 in another
container). This for me is the trickiest part when staining cytology because
if slides are not well dehydrated in saline then the cells are not going to
absorb the stains well, and the result will be a pinkish slide, when it is
suppose to look blue-greenish.

I had this problem today where I stained an entire rack of slides, and all
the slides turned blue (which means they stained correctly) except 4 slides
which turned out pinkish (which is a sign that they did not dehydrated
properly in sodium chloride (h20 saline).

Is there a solution to this issue. Can these slides be re-stained?

I know this newsgroup is for histology only but I would like to know if
histotech and cytotechs have encountered this issue in their labs and how
they ended up solving the problem.

Thanks in advance