Re: AFB's

From:Bryan Llewellyn
I had a similar problem a few years ago.  It happened even though we have always stained ZNs individually on a rack, with seperate solutions at every step.  We finally traced to an acid alcohol fast organism growing in our vacuum breaker on the cold water tap.  We changed the vacuum breaker and the contamination stopped.
 
It is also possible for control organisms to transfer from slide to slide, although not that common.  That is why the stain should always be done individually for each slide.  The technique that stains with carbol fuchsin in a coplin jar in an oven has been known to permit this since somewhere about the 1950s ( a pity, since it gives a really good demonstration).
 
Bryan Llewellyn
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Noreen Gilman
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 10:49 AM
Subject: AFB's

Hello everyone in histoland.  I've got an unusual problem and I hope you guys can help me.
My pathologist claims that when we do an AFB, some of the bacillus from the positive control "jumps" onto the patient slide and contaminates it. He claims he sees stray bacillus on the slides surrounding the control tissue, and he thinks he see them on the patient slide as well. I have tried several ways of doing this stain and at first thought the tubing on our sink was contaminated. We changed the tubing and used only distilled water, and he still insists they are there.  I have never had a problem like this before. I'm at my wits end. Any suggestion are very welcome.
Noreen
 
Noreen S. Gilman, HT (ASCP) CLS
Broward General Medical Center
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 3316
954-355-5592 Phone
954-355-4139 Fax
ngilman@nbhd.org
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