I may be the odd man out, but I would like to respectfully disagree with
both Eric and Dawn regarding turn around time for transplant biopsies.

I believe it is in the interest of best patient care to provide the most
rapid turn around possible.  Implementation of appropriate therapy in cases
of acute rejection may save the organ and the need for another risky
surgery, not to mention the anxiety the patient undergoes waiting to hear
"everything is OK."

We are using a protocol that has a total processing time of 12.5 minutes and
our morphology, special stains and IHC are beautiful.  We can turn a kidney
biopsy around in about one hour without significant interruption of our
normal services.

We have processed over 6,000 specimens using this technique.

Michael M. Fredrickson
Technical Director, Anatomic Pathology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA 02114