Hi,
    When you sent the slides to other labs for staining, did you send the slides
before or after heating them to remove the water? If you melted the sections
first then that may be the problem.
    Also, look into a correlation with soaking the blocks during cutting. This
has been suggested as a possible source of this artifact.
Amos Brooks

"Colbert, Laurie" wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Colbert, Laurie
> Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 2:14 PM
> To: 'CMD1352@aol.com'
> Subject: RE: H & E Staining problems
>
> We have had staining and/or processing problems off and on for years, and we
> are presently going through a very bad period where the problem is not
> correcting itself (which it always has in the past).  Our sections have very
> faded nuclei mainly around the edges and an overall hazy look. Several times
> the pathologists have commented that the slides were too pink.
>
> For every theory we come up with, we can always disprove that theory.  We do
> histology for five different hospitals, and the blocks are processed on
> different processors.  Our processing schedules are pretty much the same on
> each processor.  But when we have problems, we have problems with all of the
> hospitals' blocks.
>
> The main problem is with the small biopsies (skin, GI's, prostate needle
> biopsies, cervical biopsies).  We think it may be an over-processing
> problem, but when we got a demo processor so that we could set up a short
> run for the biopsies, we still had problems.  The tissue looked better, but
> not great.  One day the slides look as bad as they ever had.  Our routine
> processing schedule is nine hours long.  We have one formalin, two PenFix,
> three 100% alcohols, three xylenes, and three paraffins.  We use no heat
> except on the paraffins.
>
> We have approached the problem as a staining problem, but have pretty much
> ruled this out.  When we sent our slides to other facilities for staining,
> they still looked bad.
>
> We are at a total loss.  Has anyone ever had water problems that caused this
> problem?  We use tap water.
>
> Laurie Colbert
> Saint Joseph Medical Center
> Burbank, Ca
> (818) 557-5495
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CMD1352@aol.com [mailto:CMD1352@aol.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 7:27 PM
> To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
> Subject: H & E Staining problems
>
> Our laboratory uses an automated Leica stainer for H & E.  The pathologist
> has noticed several slides with weak staining around the periphery of the
> tissue section.  The stain is very weak just along the edge of the tissue.
> The rest of the tissue stains fine.  I checked the temperature of the slide
> dryer and found no problem.  Any ideas how tX-Mozilla-Status: 0009