[Histonet] Ventana Ultra vs. Leica Bond Max

[Curt]

Hello,
We had Leica Bond Max instruments (2 Bonds) for about 5 years and made the move over the Ventana Ultras (3 Ultras) a couple years ago. We made the move initially for the speed and menu benefits versus the Leica, (Ultra is about 2x faster) but also saw a quality improvement once we tweaked the protocols a bit.  I don't know about the difference between the XT and the Ultra because we never had the XT, but from the Leica to the Ultra the biggest improvement was speed.

We also saw dirty H. Pylori staining at first with both Leica and Ventana but have cleaned it up dramatically with some processing and fixation changes.  I don't know if the instrument has much to do with the staining quality as the changes in our process because the staining was improved using the same Ultra instrument.  If you like I would be willing stain your tissue on our instruments to see if you do in fact have a bad instrument??? I can also share with you our protocols to see if that helps your staining issues. 
 
Thanks,
 
Curt

-----Original Message-----
From: Gareth Davis via Histonet [mailto:histonet at lists.utsouthwestern.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2016 12:10 PM
To: histonet at lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: [Histonet] Ventana Ultra vs. Leica Bond Max

I was interested in anyone's opinion on the new Ventana Benchmark Ultra and Leica's Bond Max.  I currently use the Ventana Benchmark XT.  Ventana wants us to upgrade to the Ultra.  Because our contract will be up in a year, my manager and lab owners want me to check out other options.  Hoping to get a better deal and a better instrument.  The Benchmark XT slide heaters keep going out and the H. pylori is awful, Ventana swears it's the instruments fault.
Thanks,

--
Ms. Gareth B. Davis, HT, QIHC (ASCPcm)
Yuma Gastroenterology
Yuma, AZ 85364
928-248-5259
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