Dana brings up a good point... we too treat our Her2Neu as any other IHC.
We are using BioGenex antibody and follow our standard IHC procedure.  We
also felt that the Hercept test was too expensive and the protocols
developed are for formalin fixed tissues and therefore don't fit our tissue
protocols since we fix in Prefer fixative from Anatech Ltd.

Mary Bryhan HT (ASCP)
Team Leader - Pathology
Northern Michigan Hospital
Petoskey, Michigan


----- Original Message -----
From: <DDittus787@aol.com>
To: <dellav@musc.edu>; <histonet@pathology.swmed.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2000 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: another Her2 neu question


> dear vinnie
> As far as I know , no insurance carriers ask methodology of  results, they
> treat breast cancer(tamoxifen) based on  all our various methods and
clones,
> does this not set a precedent? Insurance carriers still allow the
pathologist
> to render diagnosis, based on their judgement and all our different
systems.
> How dare any one company place fear into us? HCFA forms only ask for
> procedure codes and diagnosis, no place on form as of yet for company of
> antibody or detection. We are all using same code to bill for IHC right?
How
> would any company know anything else?
> Dana
>
>