Dear Cheryl,
all perpheral blood smears and Marrow smears will progressively show this
bluing artifact as a funtion of time viz age of smear with increasing
polychromasia of erythrocytes until all appear polychromatic. (You will see
this esp. in control smears you prepare for eg. Malarial studies, and the
older the smear becomes the more pronounced is the bluing.) This can be
partly offset by fixing the slides as soon as they are well dried enough in
Anhy. Methanol (10 mins for blood smears and at least 20 mins for Bone
Marrow ref. Dacie & Lewis 4th-6th Ed.), but even with this step prior to
referral, blueing will start to be noticable in about a week, and after a
month or so is becoming pronounced.
So in summary, encourage the referring labs to always fix their smears, and
if delayed then stain them as well. Once stained they are not affected.
Mike Rentsch (Downunder).
-----Original Message-----
From: George, Cheryl <cgerorge@optima.org>
To: 'histonet@pathology.swmed.edu' <histonet@pathology.swmed.edu>
Date: Friday, 13 October 2000 5:51
Subject: Blue staining on smears


>Hi all,
>
>I have a question.  One of the hospitals that sends us bone marrow smears
>(they send the unstained smears which are stained here using Wright-Giemsa)
>continually come out blue.  They claim that they are not using a pretreated
>slide or anything unusual but even if we stain them side-by-side with one
of
>our own, ours come out purple and theirs are still blue.  Could an EDTA
tube
>be the problem?  I could sure use your help.
>
>Thanks
>
>
>Cheryl George, HT (ASCP)
>Anatomic Pathology Supervisor
>NHML
>(603)663-2686
>cgerorge@optima.org
>