[Histonet] Contamination..processor?

[Kim.Donadio <@t> bhcpns.org]

You are definite that the cells are in the block? If so I would change all 
the paraffins out as well, even the paraffin on your embedding center. 




Kim Donadio 
Pathology Supervisor
Baptist Hospital
1000 W Moreno St.
Pensacola FL 32501
Phone (850) 469-7718
Fax (850) 434-4996



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03/24/2010 11:40 AM

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[Histonet] Contamination..processor?








Hello everyone.

     Today we have a problem with contamination.  The pathologist notes 
cells from tonsil specimens here and there on our GI biopsy slides.  The 
cells are in the block.  I'm trying to ascertain the source of the 
contamination. 
     The grossing pathologist grossed the tonsils AFTER all GI specimens 
yesterday (not source of contaminant).  We (the techs) embedded all GI 
specimens first, trimmed, cut, floated and stained ALL GI specimens BEFORE 
the tonsils (not source of contaminant).  The only other source of the 
contamination I can think of is from the tissue processor.  We have a 
Tissue Tek VIP closed processor.  Has anyone ever experienced any problems 
like this?  We had a similar issue a few weeks ago.  I thought the 
contaminant cells may be from a bladder tumor, which had multiple sections 
submitted.  In this instance the cells showed up days work of the bladder 
tumor, and in the following days work also (though the pathologists could 
not say for sure the cells were from the bladder case).  We changed our 
formalin solutions in the processor and the problem did not present the 
next day.  We also started putting all bladder tumor specimens in the 
microcassettes, to prevent tissue from escaping.  Has anyone had any 
problem like this, or does anyone have any ideas on how to prevent this in 
the future?  We had not seen this problem until these past two incidences, 
and this tonsil problem is particularly strange to me because we process 
tonsils and GI specimens in the same workload on a regular basis and have 
never had this issue before.  Any help is appreciated! 

Thanks!
Brandi


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