Responding to the message of 
<4097-3CB4D572-136@storefull-2113.public.lawson.webtv.net>
from salvegsd@webtv.net (Salvacion S. Delovino):

Salvacion,
 So glad to hear everything worked out for you! I am sure that the mistake will 
not recur with your MLA....it is a hard lesson....but an effective one!! 
The reasoning behind running the tissues back through the alcohols to water is 
to REhydrate them. You are actually putting water back into the dried out 
tissue, and then reprocessing.  Never thought of using the cleaning cycle 
though....there were no "cleaning cycles" on processors when I started in 
Histology!! The old processors used to get "hung up" every now and then and the 
tissues would all dry out....that's when we would run them back and start over!!
ARGH!!

LuAnn Anderson
University of Minnesota
Neuropathology Lab
> 
> Thank you for the response(s). Actually what we did was put the
> extremely bad tissues thru the clean cycle of the processor (i.e. xylene
> then absolute alcohol) then back in xylene as the tissues were actually
> fixed already, then to paraffin. We didn't want to go all the way back
> as the tissues were already brittle and so we didn't want to expose them
> to more alcohols. I guess they were pretty much salvaged but we still
> hear people saying we shouldn't have done that.
> 
> Our MLA is new and that was the first time the methyl alcohols and the
> xylenes were put in the same cabinet. She assumed the containers were
> still all xylenes in there so she didn't think to read the labels first.
> I'm sure she learned her lesson and hopefully it will never happen
> again.
> 
> Thanks again!
> 
> Salvacion S. Delovino 
> 
> 
> .