[Histonet] RE: Xylene substitute for processing GI biopsies

[Donna Millard]

Joe,
Yes. We are about to go xylene-free (though we are still planning on using if for cleaning, because the feedback we got was that we still needed to clean the processors with xylene or we would run into problems, and my supervisor heard from people that they had to go back to xylene flushing if they initially stopped). We are going with an odorless substitute because the orange-smelling ones bother some people in the lab. We did a full validation (with blinded evaluations) that included special stains and IHC with all retrieval methods, and Breast Imaging. CAP validation requirements are getting stricter, and new IHC validation guidelenes just came out from CAP, so I would recommend validating. FYI-routinely our pathologists selected the slides with substitute processing over xylene processed (though it was close).

Donna Millard
Director of Anatomic Pathology
Physicians Reference Laboratory, LLC
7800 W. 110th Street,Overland Park, KS  66210
Direct: 913-339-0485
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