Hi Amy,
    Don't overlook that the GI lab or office could be the problem. Allowing the biopsy to dry before placing in fixative.  Leaving the specimen jar on a window sill allowing it to overheat.  Maybe a jar of old or expired fixative.  Many offices or employees of other departments are not as informed on how to handle specimens as they should be.
 
Fred

	-----Original Message-----
From:  
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 6:34 PM
To: 
Subject: hazing H&E's



	       
       Histonetters, 

	       Hope everyone had a great holiday...... now back to work......  Here 
in the past couple of weeks my docs are telling me that they are seeing a hazy 
bluish gray artifact over some of the tissue.  I had to see it to believe it 
and sure enough there it was.  It almost looks like the slides are not being 
deparaffinized enough so we worked on that and the problem is still here.  I 
don't feel that it is a staining problem because it would be only 2 3 slides out 
of a days worth of blocks (100+).  We bought a microwave and started drying 
our slides in there, thought that that might be the problem but we did a 
comparison check on slides from the microwave and the drying oven.  Still the problem 
is here..... The problem seems to be with our GI biopsies and so know I am 
wondering is there something going on with the tissue processor?  Any help would 
be greatly appreciated...... 

	       Thanks, 
       Amy