RE: microwaving slides
Microwaving slides was standard procedure in a lab
I worked in previously. We would typically put several (up to 10) racks of
slides in at once. The only problem I noticed was uneven melting amoung all the
racks, but it seemed to work out fine for H&E's, however I would use a
standard oven for my immuno and ISH slides simply to ensure even drying and
melting.
Tim
Morken
Atlanta
Greetings
to all,
I recently experimented microwaving slides prior to
deparaffinization and staining. I have searched the histonet archives to
get a feel for what others think of doing this and if any problems were
encountered during the process. It seemed only one person was strongly
against microwaving slides.
I want to cover my bases, so to speak,
because I can see how this thing is taking off in our lab. A few trial
runs and people have quickly caught on to this as an option to expedite
morning stains and trailing slides needing to make a hospital pickup. I
currently microwave anywhere between 1 to 10 slides at one time for 2 minutes
at high power. Has anyone noticed any difference between slides dried in
this manner and slides dried by conventional oven? It also my
understanding that the paraffin doesn't melt but the heated water on the slide
that melts that wax. As long as the tissue stays on the slide and is
deparaffinized completely through xylene, alcohols and water.....is this okay
and accurate thinking? One last nagging question: Did those of you
who started your own process of microwaving slides show the slides to doctors
to ensure staining is still good even after microwaving?
Deb
King, HT
Sacramento, CA
Email: WWmn916@aol.com
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