[Histonet] Contamination..processor?

[Malika Benatti]

Hey Brandi,

In my experience carry over generally occurred at time of cut-up or embedding when tiny bit of tissue get stuck between the groove of the forceps, despite been wiped clean between each specimens, but if you are 100 % sure that carry over did not occurred at time of cut-up, or embedding but during processing but during processing and the tonsil tissue is definitely in the block I suggest that you use bio-wrap/tissue wrap. 
Cheers,

Malika


Malika Benatti 

Specialist BMS
Camelia Botnar Laboratories
Histopathology Department
Great Ormond Street Hospital
London WC1N 3JH
United Kingdom


Tel:  +44 20 7405 9200 ext 5475
Fax:  +44 20 7829 7875

benatm <@t> gosh.nhs.uk



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