It's ironic how your problem has occurred over two holiday weekends.  Do you
run a different program over the holiday weekends?

When we have had to reprocess under processed tissue we melt the blocks
down, and reversed process on the VIP cleaning cycle.  Then we reprocess on
a short run excluding formalin and starting with 70% alcohol. This protocol
was published in the Histologic Technical Bulletin by Sakura in Nov 2001.
Unfortunately we have become pretty good at it.

Kari Bradshaw, HT(ASCP)
Laboratory Manager
Lower Columbia Pathologists
1217 14th Ave
Longview, WA 98632
(360)425-5620

-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
[mailto:histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu]On Behalf Of Kari
Breal
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 11:27 AM
To: histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: [Histonet] Improper tissue processing


I have had another tissue malfunction.  The last time was July 4th weekend
and it happened again last weekend- Christmas weekend.  The tissue came off
of the processor mushy- I suspect with water still in them.  The processor
did not malfunction or error according to the blank error log- we have a VIP
E300.  When I checked the reagents in the processor- the reagents up to the
last 100% were correct.  The last 100% alcohol was at 87%.  Which to me is
what caused the raw tissue but what I can not figure out is how it got that
way.  This happened on Friday with minimal staff.  No one changed any
reagents on Friday and the tissue from Friday morning was normal.  The
processor was due to be rotated on Monday the 27th.

My doc's are looking for reasons and answers and I am drawing a blank.  I
was hoping another histologist outside of this chaos might be able to think
of questions or reasons that I am not currently able to.

I also would like to know how everyone is treating their under processed
tissue.  Reprocessing by hand? Reprocessing on the VIP? We actually
reprocessed using a microwave processor.  The tissue turned from mush to
extremely hard tissues.  Unfortunately 45 of the 50 blocks were prostate
bx's and there was very little tissue to begin with.

Thank you for your assistance!

Kari Breal
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