RE: Breast specimens

From:"Willis, Donna"

An ASR is an Analytic Specific Reagent.  

I am going to state from the package inserts from both Pathway and
Herceptest the Specimen Preparation times.

Herceptest
Tissues preserved in neutral buffered formalin or Bouin's for routine
processing and paraffin embedding, are suitable for use.  For example,
specimens from the biopsy should be blocked into a thickness or 3 or 4 mm
and fixed for 18-24 hours in neutral buffered formalin.  The tissues are
then dehydrated in a series of alcohols and xylene, followed by infiltration
by melted paraffin held at no more than 60C.

Pathway
The recommended fixative is 10% neutral buffered formalin.  The amount used
is 15 to 20 times the volume of tissue.  No fixative will penetrate more
than 2 to 3 mm of solid tissue or 5 mm of porous tissue in a 24 hour period.
A 3 mm or smaller section of tissue should be fixed no less than 4 hours and
no more than 8 hours.  Fixation can be performed at room temperature
(15-25C)


Donna Willis
Histology Lab Manager
Harris Methodist Fort Worth, Texas 

-----Original Message-----
From: RSRICHMOND@aol.com [mailto:RSRICHMOND@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 4:02 PM
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: Re: Breast specimens


Donna Willis responds:

>>Since we use HER2/neu in our lab as an ASR, I have done a little more 
research on the formalin fixation and you are correct. The Herceptest and 
Pathway package inserts/protocols are very detailed about the amount of time

that a sample must be formalin fixed.<<

What is the amount of time the specimen must be left in formalin? Does the 
amount of time demand overnight fixation? Good thing if it did.

What's an ASR?

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN




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