[Histonet] Immunohistochemistry slides drying and baking protocol

[Gagnon, Eric]

Hi Milton,
 
We've begun baking ALL IHC slides for 2 hours at 60 degrees C.  This also applies to unstained extra slides that may potentially used for IHC, including extra sections on breast cores, lymph node cores, cytology cell blocks etc.  No specific room temperature drying time before the oven though.  This has not resulted in any increase in washoffs.  We specify time for removal of individual baskets in the oven if oven is filling up, which it often does these days.  I should add we are using Ventana BenchMark XT, for which the recommendation initially was 30 mins at 37 degrees C before placing slides on the instrument.  
 
We've also started discarding unused unstained slides 3 months after they're cut.  Now if we can just reduce the number of unstained slides we cut that we don't need, that will be really great.
 
Hope this helps,
 
Eric Gagnon MLT
Histology Laboratory
Kingston General Hospital
Kingston, Ontario, Canada