Dear Lynn,

If the main markers you are looking at are HMB-45,
S100, NKI or a variant chances are that if you follow
the standard in your lab, you should be okay.  In most
clinical settings these are fixed for 12-24 hours, and
these markers generally don't require any
pretreatment.  Routine Histology won't be affected as
the protein identification isn't the basis for
staining.  The hospital I used to work at sometimes
held these tissues as long a 2 days in formalin and we
didn't experience any problems.  Our Immnunos were
automated (Ventana ES and later the NEXES).

Vikki Baker
American Health Foundation
Valhalla, New York
--- Lynn Gardner <lynn-gardner@uiowa.edu> wrote:
> Dear Histonetters,
> 
> I am interested in finding the best fixation and
> processing method for skin
> melanomas that will render consistently good results
> for both routine and
> immuno. I would appreciate any and all imput from
> laboratories that perfom
> these functions on a routine basis and that have
> consistenly good immunos.
> 
> Thanks everyone, 
> Lynn Gardner
> 
> 


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