Is it possible that the xylene is dripping from the top of the rack?  We had
that problem once a long time ago and it seems that was the problem.  Small
drips would come off the top of the rack and inhibit hematoxylin staining.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mplhisto@aol.com [mailto:Mplhisto@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 6:48 PM
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: Re: Staining/Processing problem


 I hope that someone can help me out, we have had a problem a couple of 
times recently where  areas of the slide are not staining, the area looks   
like  the  slide did not deparaffinize good in spots. But I feel like the 
deparafinization step should be complete. The slides seem to be dried good,
2 
slides were even control slides that had been dried for a month or so. These

both appeared at the beginning of the week, on relativley light workload 
days. These are stained on the Sakura stainer, and normally our slides are 
beautiful. Could the Xylene be contaminated?? We do use recycled. Please 
help!!! 
        Meredith