[Histonet] Re: Gram stain

[Bob Richmond]

Stacy Giroux (where?) asks: >>Our lab is currently transitioning from
the Brown & Brenn gram stain due to no longer wanting to store picric
acid due to its potential hazards. Our pathologists have requested a
gram stain for paraffin embedded tissue that looks similar but does
not use picric acid or ether. Does anyone have any suggestions on
stains that could be used or gram stain kits that are available for
purchase that are good?<<

I'd want to ask your pathologists: do you really need this stain? If
you want to see or count bacteria, a simple Giemsa type stain (such as
Diff-Quik) will do the job. Tissue Gram stains are arduous to perform,
and do not work well, particularly for staining Gram negatives. The
Gram stain on smears is of course the workhorse of microbiology, but
it does not work well on tissue sections.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN