[Histonet] Caspase3

[Sarah Dysart]

For all of you research guys out there working with this.  I was asked to pose the question of how you quantify this stain.  I know histology is a black and white yes/no kind of science, but I am being asked to quantify this stain.  Are just the very positive cells counted as positive?
There is what appears to be non-specific staining on some of the tumors (not all of them).  This non-specific staining is only in the tumor and not in the surrounding normal tissue.  Is this a sometimes artifact of the stain?
For Ki-67 we are quantifying the stain using an average of positive cells per area.  This gives you a sort of index to determine how Ki-67 positive each tumor is.  The problem with the Caspase3 is that this fuzzy stain is in 2 of our tumors, and while I say read through it (non-specific staining) others are thinking it means something.
Anyhoo, any help would be greatly appreciated.  Basically how do you report your Caspase results?  Just as a positive or negative (which every tumor will be positive) or what other method do you use.
Thanks

Sarah Goebel-Dysart, BA, HT(ASCP)
Histotechnologist
Mirna Therapeutics
2150 Woodward Street
Suite 100
Austin, Texas  78744
(512)901-0900 ext. 6912