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<DIV><SPAN class=449005713-09102003><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#0000ff>Not
only should you be running a negative control for each patient
slide. That negative control should be treated just as your antibody
is. If the antibody is rabbit and antigen retrieved, so should your
control. If another antibody on the same patient is mouse and not
retrieved another negative control should be run with this same
protocol. In the United States, labs that are inspected by the CAP,
are required to run these controls. MONEY should never be
considered as a reason to stop doing a part of a procedure. It's
poor patient care and lousy quality control.
IMHO.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=449005713-09102003><FONT face="Comic Sans MS"
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Hazel Horn, HT/HTL (ASCP)<BR>Histology Supervisor<BR>Arkansas
Children's Hospital<BR><BR>Phone - 501.364.4240<BR>Fax - 501.364.3912
</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> vermast
[mailto:vermast@rogers.com] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, October 08, 2003 3:57
PM<BR><B>To:</B> histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu<BR><B>Subject:</B>
[Histonet] negative IHC controls<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I would like to get a feel for how many out there
are running negative control slides for IHC. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In our lab we do just a handful of antibodies and
initially I had been running a negative control slide with each patient slide.
After much discussion with our pathologists, we decided to omit these
negatives (which were conistently negative) and continue to just run a
positive control with each primary antibody for the run. We use the Dako
autostainer and prediluted primaries. The decision to stop running
negatives also coincided with Dako's decision to sell the negative control
sera separately from the primaries (they used to come packaged
together). Perhaps I assumed that discontinuing to pair these reagents
together meant that few labs were using the negatives.</FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></DIV></FONT>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Anyhow, after having reviewed the last QMPLS
(Canada) survey committee comments, I believe the committe would like a
negative control run with each patient tissue slide in order to evaluate
background (they have used NCCLS guide pages as reference).
Incidentally we weren't a part of the survey due to a
technicality.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Any help or advice would be
appreciated.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>L. Vermast</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Stratford, Ont.</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
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